


Thresholds

by frangipani



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Jedi Order Era - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Force Woo, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda AU, Luke and Mara have a baby moon on Dathomir, Matriarchal society, Non-Jedi Orders, Pregnancy, Worldbuilding, a lot of ritual stuff, all my shipper feels, boring married feelings, camping therapy, cherry picking what i want from the books and ignoring everything i hate, i love dathomir, introspective, other people's problems, parenting feelings, post-Balance Point, religious syncretism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-02-15 04:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 72,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13023213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frangipani/pseuds/frangipani
Summary: While in Dathomir, Luke and a pregnant Mara take part in an old Witchy purification ritual in preparation for impending parenthood.A lot less cracky than it sounds.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline is **26 ABY** (for reference Luke first goes to Dathomir in 8ABY a year before TTT). This takes *some* of the events of the NJO, namely, space cancer and the fall of Duro to the Yuuzhan Vong as canon (as opposed to the bullshit at Fondor which LALALALA), but no background knowledge is necessary for this AU. Vong is not something I’ll go into in detail. What I'm keeping is just background for feeeeeelings. 
> 
> Dathomiri witch culture comes from _Courtship of Princess Leia_ by Dave Wolverton with *a lot* of add-ons from me. 
> 
> Hope everyone is having excellent holidays!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist found [here](https://playmoss.com/es/teagrl83/playlist/thresholds).

_“What would you even do if you owned this planet?”_

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_“We would sell land to settlers...and hire_ _teachers to_  
_come to us from the stars...in time our children_  
_will no longer be outcasts, living in these rough hills.”_  
-Dave Wolverton, Courtship of Princess Leia

  


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[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53IT41Pf8fc)  
  


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“That must be it,” Luke said as the town of Agama's Cry came into view below them, a smattering of stone and wood buildings nestled between the rolling hills, bounded by the smooth stone of a narrow city wall. A silvery river curled gently beside the western portion the walls while an expanse of dense green crept along them from the east. 

Luke fought the impulse to ask how Mara was feeling, contenting himself with leaning his head lightly against hers. Her hair, tucked into its usual braid, brushed against his cheek.

“I told you it wasn’t far away at all.” Mara nudged Osha, their rancor, down the hill. She gestured to Dathomir’s pinkish sun streaking the sky orange as it lowered in the distance past the town. “We made good time too. The weather’s been near perfect.” 

Luke frowned, but didn’t say more. She was right, after all. The day’s ride had been an easy one and she’d managed to keep all of her food down the past days. Mara thought they were turning a corner. 

He wasn’t completely convinced leaving Singing Mountain, the largest and most advanced town in the region, so named for the clan that had founded it -- almost a city of late -- was the best idea, but ever since Mara’s last check up at Coruscant, he’d been cautious about bringing up anything she could dismiss as his overprotectiveness. He knew, too, Mara wouldn’t have suggested the trip if it were the least bit dangerous. Not now.

They had arrived by the town gates as the sun was dipping below the swath of lavender with blue that made up the horizon. Mara went to dismount first as was custom. At this time there were already sentries at the gates, but they had felt Mara announce her arrival through the Force, and hadn't moved from their posts. One woman, perhaps a decade older than them, her black hair loose and streaked with gray waited to greet them. That, too, was custom in small towns like this.

Osha extended one of his gnarled arms to help Mara down, generally unnecessary since Mara, while not an experienced rider by local standards, was proficient enough, and steadied herself with the Force as she slid herself down his gnarled body.

After, she touched Osha's flank, thanking him and bid him to wait for his keepers. Osha snuffed at her, beady eyes still scanning about. Rancors, as they were told at Singing Mountain, tended to be protective of witches that were sensed, in their terms, to be “teeming.” That had been another check in Mara’s favor.

“Welcome, Sister Mara from Singing Mountain,” the woman meeting them called. She was clad in a sleeveless tunic of glossy red lizard hide, the bones on the leather wrist strap she wore swaying as she walked to them. The strap marked her status as a Council witch and her specialty; Luke still had a hard time decoding the latter.

Mara tipped her head in acknowledgment. She wore one of those straps, too, as did all the female instructors and advanced apprentices at the Dathomir academy, but it was bare, without any stones or bones hanging from it. The lightsaber was to take the place of the charm.

The witch then turned to Luke, who had just dismounted and busied himself grabbing the two small bags strapped to the rancor. “...and mate.”

Luke bowed his head in her direction. Dathomiri women, and witches especially, seldom addressed men, but the mate of a witch known to be pregnant might be allowed a distinction. Both he and Mara had decided against using Luke’s name to avoid attracting excessive notice; his own lightsaber remained hidden away in his loose tunic.

Mara grabbed her bag from him when he approached and reached for his hand with her free one, interlinking her fingers with his as they approached the witch. That, at least, was not an uncommon gesture among partnered witches. Osha stayed where he was ever vigilant.

“Sister Jia?”

The witch nodded. “Our sisters from Singing Mountain said you would be staying here for a few nights.”

Mara nodded. “I have heard that the seer here does the Rite of the Stones and wondered if I could petition to join this season,” she explained through both knew that Jia had been told beforehand. This trip had been partially arranged by Kirana Ti’s senior apprentice, Shan Fa, her niece.

Jia regarded Mara for a moment. Both he and Mara were wearing the kinds of tunics the Dathomiri wore, but Mara had traded off the hardier reptilian leathers for something more humble, or as she put it -- breathable. To Luke’s eyes the round of her belly was visible, but he didn’t know to what extent the pregnancy would be visible to others, perceivable...especially to those with the Force.

“You are Jai, but this rite is seldom done by witches that aren’t traditional -- ”

“No,” Mara interrupted, but her tone became lighter with the next. “I’m not traditional. Just someone who has come to appreciate tradition.” Her eyes moved in Luke’s direction. “Some of it."

“Well, teeming does give one a different view,” Jia conceded. “How many moons is the seedling?”

“Over ten bright moon cycles and sixty dim moon cycles.” Mara had done the calculations with the main Dathomiri moons with Kirana Ti shortly after her arrival. Since in a planet full of this many Force users her pregnancy at this stage might not be a secret, she’d been well prepared to field all kinds of questions. 

“Girl or boy?”

Luke felt her bristle. Mara was now familiar with the implications. 

“Does it matter for the rite?” she asked tersely. Mara knew it didn't. She had made sure. She'd also confessed to Luke of feeling rather sensitive when it came to their son -- enough to be particular about revealing details here to avoid any unpleasantness.

The witch looked taken aback at her tone, but took it in stride. No doubt she'd chalked it off to Jai offworlder quirks. 

“No. Our seer is Mother Vila, she will be leading the rites. But they are only to be done once,” she cautioned, giving Mara another look over. 

“The child will be my first.”

Jia’s eyes widened. Even though they’d both anticipated the reaction -- Dathomiri tended to partner young -- he sensed a flash of pain from Mara.

“I was...ill,” she said with difficulty, knowing an explanation was expected. Luke tamped down on the urge to put an arm around her. Among the Dathomiri, who until recently had seen men as little more than slaves, and in some parts still did, those gestures looked conspicuously wrong when initiated by a man. Mara’s hand tightened around his, and she stepped closer to him. 

“For a long time, I didn't think it was possible.” Her tone was matter of fact, but that glimmer of pain was clear to him.

Jia’s face gentled. “A boon from fate. Mother Vila is set to come tomorrow morning after the morning meal. You can talk to her then.” 

Luke felt Jia’s summons lift through the air and a teen girl came forward with two men flanking her. All three called out their welcome to Osha who gave a long look in Mara’s direction. Mara nudged him off through the Force, and he allowed himself to be escorted away from the gates to the sprawling woods beside the town.

The witch beckoned to them. “I will show you to your lodgings.” 

\--

Their walk to the inn had taken them through the main thoroughfare of of the town, a worn dirt path lined with bustling kiosks selling anything from brightly colored tunics to savory meat on skewers. Luke's stomach rumbled and he was reminded it was close to dinner for them.

Children in pale tunics ran around underfoot while women and men, mostly partnered men, going from the ornate arm bands they wore -- what Mara referred to disparagingly as cuffs -- hawked and bought.

The inn they would be staying at was a squat red sandstone building with a wooden door, probably a recent construction and larger than the others around it. From the reports Luke had gotten from Kirana Ti and Streen, the overseers of the Jedi academy on Dathomir and what he'd seen, these past years had been kind to this region of the planet. 

“You get a lot of visitors from Singing Mountain?” Mara asked as the witch rapped on the door.

Jia nodded. “Quite a few, but not so many during this time. We’re the closest village between them and Frenzied River,” she named the second largest town in the area. “Harvest will begin soon so we’re expecting more visitors then.” The harvest, they knew, would mean witches at the larger towns would be returning to their home villages to help their families prepare for the long festivals to honor their ancestors. “Sister Alva is a commoner, but these are the best lodgings in Agama's Cry.” 

The door opened and a woman, stepped aside to let them into a small interior courtyard. She was a bit younger than Jia, about their age, her auburn hair was in numerous braids, her tunic sky blue. She smiled as she welcomed them in.

“This is Sister Mara and her mate. I leave them in your hands,” Jia said without preamble. The Dathomiri weren't given to many formalisms. Jia tipped her head in Mara’s direction. “If there is anything else you wish, Alva knows how to find me. Enjoy your stay.”

Jia left them and Alva smiled warmly. “I hear you’ve come for the Rite of Stones?”

Mara nodded.

“There is one other witch who will undergo the rites staying with us. If she joins us for dinner you’ll be able to meet her.”

A man came forward, calling out to the woman. From their rapport, and the man’s arm band, silvery and studded with jewels -- a testament to his wife’s wealth -- Luke gathered this was her husband.

The husband’s eyes flickered and lowered deferentially in Mara's direction before he turned back to Alva and updated her on the preparations for the dinner. By now, Luke was used to the general invisibility of partnered men in Dathomiri culture, and while it sat uncomfortably in principle, in practice it was a welcome respite from the constant notice he got at most other places these days. 

Luke felt the husband’s summons through the Force. _He_ must be Force sensitive, Luke realized. Some minutes later at ten or twelve year old boy showed up, their child, judging by the family resemblance. Their host indicated he should show them to their room.

“Dinner will be in an hour,” Alva announced to Mara. “You’ll have some time to rest and wash. I’ll send someone to bring you Pae’sher tea and some refreshment to tide you until then.”

Luke felt a twinge of exasperation through the bond and bit back a smile. Pae’sher tea was a thought to benefit pregnant women. Mara had little else to drink but that since arriving to Dathomir, wanting to give no offense, but had complained it wasn’t to her taste. The tea on the whole was spicy and faintly sweet, not bad to him, but Mara claimed it had a medicinal aftertaste. She’d been more sensitive to those sorts of things since her recovery.

The boy led them up the stairs to a small chamber with little more than a sleeping pallet and a small low wooden table with a clay pitcher and some cups. There was a hearth to the end of the room, empty, since it was too early in the season for it to be used. On the ground beside the pallet was a black carpet that looked as if it was made from an animal pelt, luxurious for Dathomiri standards. Luke left their bags unobtrusively in the corner and they followed the boy down to where he showed them a basic ‘fresher area in a separate building.

By the time they returned to the room, there was tea on the table and a bowl with fruit and nuts.

Mara wrinkled her nose at the tea, going past it to serve herself some water while Luke dug around their bag for his change of clothes. He heard her put the cup back on the table and looked up. With a sigh, she reached for the tea and drank a few sips to Luke's amusement. If Mara drank none of the tea, it’d be noticed and asked about, probably with some scolding.

She went over to go get her own clothes. “It’s more than what I expected. ”

“Shan Fa made the arrangements,” Luke said. Born to a line of powerful witches, her ranking on Dathomir was not dissimilar to Leia’s in terms of wealth and privilege. It had been a great shock to her family when she chose to train at the academy under Kirana Ti. Being close friends of the late Mother Augwynne, the former matriarch and head of Singing Mountain's Witches Council though, they’d taken it with surprising grace. “And she mentioned relaxation.” Luke went to sit at the pallet, examining his wife. Mara appeared a little tired, but nothing unusual. He didn’t get anything unusual from the bond either.

Mara looked up, an indulgent smile on her face. “Go on. I know you want to ask. You’ve managed to hold out this long.”

It was his turn to sigh as she came to sit beside him, her clothes on her lap. “How do you feel?”

“A little tired from the trip,” she brushed some loose strands of hair from her face, “but good. Better than a week ago at least. I haven’t had any queasiness. It almost feels...normal.”

Luke slid an arm around her waist and she nestled her head on his shoulder. 

They’d set out for Dathomir after Leia finished her bacta treatments. Coming right after the loss at Duro and Leia's harrowing escape, the trip had been a fraught one-- no less because Mara’s morning sickness had begun in earnest. It’d begun to wane a few days after their arrival, a good thing because once here, Mara had been swept up in administrative duties for the satellite academy they'd established in Dathomir under her name.

Kirana Ti, one of his first students, was the equivalent of the school’s headmaster and in charge of the academy’s day to day operations with Streen, another one of his former students, as her right hand. Mara’s role as founder right now meant providing local assurance against the increasingly serious situation for Jedi elsewhere in the galaxy, especially now that they were targeted for violence. Both he and Mara doubted Dathomir was on anyone's map, which made it a good place to regroup for a time.

Luke had kept busy with similar tasks to hers, but remotely, and on a far larger scale. He’d spent most of his time planetside tracking and checking on their Jedi scattered across the galaxy on various assignments, urging them to keep track of each other, and keep a low profile until they could reconvene at Coruscant in a few weeks. The work had paid off; they finally had confirmation that everyone not caught in the crucible at Duro was safe and knew about the convocation. 

Between that and Mara negotiating the usual tiredness and morning sickness, during their days in Dathomir Luke hardly felt like they were in the same planet. It seemed for a while all they did together was collapse in a tired heap on their pallet in the small chamber that was theirs at the academy building. 

But Mara was well. Healthy. And within her... _life_ , their son's incandescence permeating her Force presence.

“That’s what Kirana Ti said, in any case,” Mara muttered. “The magic starts after the purging cycles are done.”

Luke chuckled, pulling her closer. She smelled like forest, sweat, and rancor musk, but he didn’t find it off putting. Quite the opposite; it’d been too long. He turned his thoughts away.

“You don’t believe in magic,” he teased.

Mara pulled away to look at him, eyes bright. “I don’t. But I like not vomiting after every meal.” His chuckle turned into a laugh. 

“On that thought..." She stood. "I guess we should get ready for dinner. We both stink.”

\--

Dinner was held in an open area on the first floor. Green and yellow tapestries hung on the walls, a long low oval table made of a dark wood, uncommon in the parts they’d visited, took up most of the room. The inn's other guests had come down and were lounging in the cushions along the table.

While in formal dinners the custom was still for men to dine separately, because the guests were outsiders who had come from afar, their mates or male servants were allowed to dine beside them if the woman in question so chose. 

Some sort of meat, most likely reptilian, had been roasted and was placed at the center of the table, its fragrant spices wafting through the room. Various large earthenware bowls, some with leafed greens, others with crunchy fried foods, stewed tubers in some piquant looking red sauce, and other dishes unfamiliar to Luke were placed along the center of the table, flasks of what he recognized as honey wine and a pitcher of water between them. A smaller teapot had been placed off to the side of the table, Pae’sher tea, no doubt. 

Luke settled along the cushions and reached for Mara’s plate as she greeted Alva and three women there -- all a few years older than her. The two other men at the table, older than the women, were occupying themselves similarly. The one beside the blonde had silvery hair and a jutting chin, the other attending a woman with hair several shades darker than Mara's was bald and thick set.

Luke greeted them, through the Force as well once he picked out that both were Force sensitive, but was unsurprised by the tepidness of their response. There were no social norms prohibiting exchange between men, but many simply saw no point in focusing on anyone other than the woman they were linked to for various reasons. 

The gnawing feeling at his stomach drew his attention to the dishes arranged on the table. They all smelled delicious to him, but he remembered Leia had mentioned something about not tolerating strong smells during her pregnancies. 

Luke cast a sidelong glance at Mara, who now sitting on her cushion, was introducing herself and making small talk with the women seated around her. Luke didn’t catch anything off from Mara’s general state, so he simply filled her plate. Maybe it would happen later on, or not at all, he thought as he slid it to her, feeling the light touch of her hand on his wrist in response. 

She was wearing another tunic of the same breathable fabric as before, but slightly more fitted than the one she’d worn during the trip and in a rich golden color, long enough to be worn as a dress. Luke had found himself scanning over her figure for any new roundedness other than the soft rise of her stomach when they’d left the ‘freshers. He thought there might be a more sweeping curve to her hips, a new fullness to her breasts. How much of it was her restored health and how much of it was her pregnancy, he wasn’t completely sure, but he welcomed all of it.

By contrast to Mara’s simplicity in dress, the other women wore the reptilian hide tunics Dathomiri so favored, but all three had thick-jewel encrusted necklaces signaling their wealth. All of them wore the leather straps of a witch past her awakening rites, but none had charms dangling from them like Jia had, suggesting they were not practicing witches. The two men at the table had intricately decorated arm bands. 

Alva herself was to dine with them, her mate with their children elsewhere, since for her this was part of her duties as host. She began the introductions, all the women congratulating Mara on her pregnancy. Before the pregnancy could dominate the conversation, Mara asked the women about their own business at Agama's Cry. They were traveling together towards Singing Mountain for a meeting to discuss trade with other outlying villages.

“And what is your occupation, Mara?” one of the women across her asked, a blonde called Betheda, if he'd overheard right. As she took a sip of her wine, Luke caught some of Mara’s wistfulness at the sight and smiled faintly.

Mara swallowed the mouthful she’d been chewing. Her appetite seemed to have returned, and she had taken to the meal with as much relish as he had. Luke hoped she'd been right about things settling down. The thought made an old guilt emerge; the conflict had taken him so far from her the first months after the illness had vanished. No matter how much Mara insisted that what she was going through was normal, that this distance between them was normal, at some point it had stopped feeling that way.

And no matter how many medical files she’d passed onto him as Cilghal did scan after scan, worry lurked. He'd had more than a few sleepless nights, especially just after her her health had returned, where he'd been unable to help scrutinizing her face through the holos while he was away, asking himself, was that paleness normal? Was that bruising under her eyes? 

Could it be that somehow they’d gotten everything wrong? 

_No_ , he'd tell himself over and over. No.

Mara touched his forearm lightly, and he shook himself. It was better now, he thought. He looked over at her as she said, “I teach the Arts.”

The women's eyes turned appreciative. All Dathomiri women with Force abilities were trained in a basic understanding of the Force, what they called ‘Dathomiri magic’, in their way from girlhood to the culmination in a witch’s awakening rites, but now that peace had settled on Dathomir, only exceptionally talented and well-trained witches continued into specializations. Schools had sprung up focusing on land spells, weather control, healing, martial schools, and so forth. This, along with Council membership, was indicated by the charm attached to the strap. The title of teacher had acquired considerable social cache. 

Mara’s titles here had not been gifted to her; she’d trained and earned the right to identify as a witch in Dathomiri terms as part of the hoops she’d had to jump through to gain legitimacy for the academy from Singing Mountain’s Witches Council. Like learning a another language, but one familiar to your own, he’d overheard her explaining to Jaina some time ago. In addition to undergoing the awakening rites, Mara's demonstrated mastery of Jedi or _Jai_ techniques, as well as the support from two thirds of the Council, was what granted her the title of teacher, though in practice she'd always been more involved in outreach than instruction here. 

Truthfully, both he and Mara had wanted the satellite academy to be Kirana Ti's, but Kirana Ti, with the support of Mother Augwynne, had argued that more would be gained locally if they tried to distance the academy from Luke's name and she was seen to be working for a female Jai. Mara's more ambassadorial role to influential witches and before various Councils gave Kirana Ti more leeway to focus on the students themselves.

“Which school of magic?” the brunette to Mara’s left asked. Luke didn’t recall her name. She gestured to the unadorned strap around Mara’s wrist with some confusion. Mara had opted against carrying her lightsaber to dinner. She often preferred to reveal the details of her affiliation to the academy gradually.

“Jai,” she said.

"Ah," the woman nodded and Luke felt no positive or negative reaction. The Jedi academy on Dathomir had been established around a decade earlier, so it was not as exotic as it had once been, though still far from mainstream. Luke felt no strong emotion from the men either.

One of the other women, the one whose mate was bald, leaned forward. She sat adjacent to Mara, beside Betheda, the blonde who’d first spoken. “A Jai teacher -- you teach men, I suppose.”

“Not just men,” Mara answered after finishing her bite. "Jai teachings are open to all. Women training at the academy are also prepared to pass their awakening rites."

This had been another one of Kirana Ti's ideas to better integrate the academy. A practicing witch had a duty to take on apprentices, and her own social standing was bolstered by the number of apprentices she could guide to the successful completion of their awakening rites.

"But you don't teach men Dathomiri magic, of course," Betheda said.

Mara frowned. "No. They learn Jai magic alone."

While neither Mara nor Kirana Ti tolerated division between the student body with respect to Jedi teachings, Kirana Ti did not feel it would be politically wise for Dathomiri magic -- the spells and meditations used by witches -- to be taught to male students for the time being. The academy needed to be more entrenched before it could take such an unconventional stance. Any perception of Jedi overreach into local matters would hurt their image and recruitment more than help it.

"But what use would a witch have for _Jai_ magic if she has her own?" Betheda mused. 

The woman sitting beside Betheda intervened, "In the stars. Our magic is no good outside of Dathomir." She bit into one of the fried vegetables.

"That's not entirely true," Mara said. "Magic can be used outside of Dathomir. It's a matter of a different approach. That is what we teach."

The two women seemed to ponder it. Luke's working theory, based on his training of Kirana Ti and his conversations with Mara as she trained as a witch, was that Dathomiri meditations had a larger degree of specificity than Jedi ones. Witches were taught to lean far more heavily on the physical world around them than Jedi. As a consequence, when their physical world changed, becoming new and unfamiliar to them, they found themselves off balance, and had difficulty summoning the focus necessary to sink into the Force.

Mara looked down to her plate, and upon finding she’d emptied it, was about to reach for more of the fried vegetables from the bowl at the center of the table. Luke touched her shoulder and took her plate when she stilled, leaning over to refill it.

“You're an offworlder.” The woman beside Betheda lightly touched the back of her mate's palm as he passed her a plate of food. Luke felt an acknowledgement ripple out from him. "Hapes?"

This was the most common destination and waypoint for Dathomiri who wanted to leave the planet, mainly because of its cultural similarities. The Queen Mother of Hapes herself was a witch, and had set up various organizations to help her people transition from their insular world to the more cosmopolitan galaxy. The connection to Hapes had ushered the most dramatic changes within Dathomir yet, even outside the economic sphere. Although Hapes too was a matriarchy, slavery had long been outlawed in the sixty-three planets that comprised the Consortium before Dathomir's addition. As a result, treating men as chattel overtly had quickly been stigmatized by the settler population with which trade flourished. It was now common practice for women to negotiate with one another for the men held under their care under a complex dowry system similar to the one in the Consortium.

Mara shook her head. "Not Hapes."

“There are many Hapans in Frenzied River now. The head of their council herself lives with one,” the woman beside Mara commented, taking a sip of her wine. “She calls her her mate.”

“The Hapan commoner woman, yes,” Betheda added, cutting through a piece of meat. “She is as strange as she is beautiful. They say she was behind that new proposed law to free all the men in the clan. I heard she takes to saying she doesn’t mind being referred to as a mate.” Betheda wrinkled her nose.

“Hard to say no to a Hapan,” the woman beside Mara grumbled. “They need no magic to beguile.”

“It will never pass, Aignes” The one beside Betheda scoffed. “The head of Frenzied River has been trying for what? Two seasons?”

“Frenzied River has more Hapans and commoners than witches, Muirne. I would not be so confident,” Aignes replied.

Betheda shook her head, raising her utensil slightly in emphasis. "Not by much. But better that the Council's attention be on enforcing groom price laws. Too many young women selling everything they own to make a greedy woman's unreasonable price for her son. They get their mate, but cannot keep him. They can barely feed themselves. This breeds disaffection, and even mistreatment.” She tsk’ed. "But what would that Hapan know? Some of them think of Dathomir as their apprentice's poultice."

Muirne humph'ed, taking a bite of one of the tubers in red sauce.

"And then you have traditional witches with two mates. Or more,” Aignes added, lifting her index finger.

“Oh, yes,” Muirne inhaled, her consternation clear as she lowered her utensil, “those helm heads out west, clinging to the days when our children played naked in the dirt. All so _honoring_ of the old ways, forgetting the days when husbands couldn’t attend the hearth for being too busy digging out leeches from the little ones’ asses.” She smiled at her mate beside her who looked like he was trying not to laugh, playfully nudging him until he chuckled out loud. He murmured something in her ear that made her snicker.

Betheda was guffawing. “Maybe that’s why the traditionalist witch that came with us has two!” She sputtered a little and her mate patted her back until she got her breathing under control.

Aignes laughed, but it was lukewarm. “We laugh, but my father was second husband. It is not so easy to keep a peaceful hearth with more than one mate." 

Muirne nodded as she went back to her food. "Greedy and short-sighted most of the time. I don't see how that witch that arrived with us can justify it."

From the head of the table Alva radiated discomfort. Luke didn't blame her, as a host this kind of talk put her in an awkward position.

But the women seemed to be done, and Betheda turned back to Mara as her mate went to refill her glass of wine. She touched his shoulder, and Luke felt an echo in the Force. The man stopped pouring. “You said you did your awakening rites at Singing Mountain?" 

“Yes,” Mara reached for her water. “Under Mother Augwynne's Council just before she passed.”

Betheda nodded heavily. "May her spirit continue to light Dathomir's awakening."

There were nods from everyone around the table. Mother Augwynne who, in addition of defeating the Nightsisters during her time as head of the Singing Mountain clan, and being the Dathomiri Queen Mother's grandmother, also convened the Dathomiri Witches Council -- the body that managed all of Dathomir's contact with Hapes and the galaxy at large -- was largely credited for ushering this newfound prosperity. 

"And you found a mate here?” Aignes asked. "Rare."

Mara was about to answer when Muirne protested, "Why rare? Give no quarter to Hapan rancor dung, Sister." She pursed her lips. "They would sing of their beautiful men, but can any of those beauties repair cracked leather? They can't even light a fire. Their machines do everything so they can sit and be easy on the eyes." Her mouth twisted in disapproval. "And do not even think of mentioning the machines to them. Hapans rather pretend that things simply _appear_ ," she waved a hand, "without even the effort of a spell. No, nothing compares to a good Dathomiri man. I would not trade my mate for the Shining Prince himself." She laid a hand on her mate beside her, rubbing his shoulder as he ducked his head with a small smile.

Betheda nodded and Mara couldn't reply for her swift, "True. What good is a man who can't keep a woman's hearth? And a man who can pass the magic -- one who knows her heart _and_ her child's heart? A man who can _soothe_ her child?" She continued solemnly, "That is more valuable than all the glories of Hapes. Beauty fades." She raised her eyebrows as she took a sip of her wine. 

Muirne continued, "Traditionalist blather aside, I would not have faulted Mother Teneniel for taking in one of our own as second husband, if anything, for her daughter's sake. Look at her busy protecting her lands while her mate's head is only full of the finery he will wear in the evening. Good thing she has servants. But a talented child in _her_ circumstances especially, should have had a father who was able to properly comfort her, not a simple commoner who understands nothing of her birthright." She shook her head. 

Luke caught a flicker of pain from the head of the table. His eyes slid towards Alva, whose expression was only of polite interest. She was a commoner, he remembered. Born to a society that valued the ability to use the Force above all. How many statements of this sort had she heard?

Beside him, Mara didn't look for another opportunity to reply, her head was slightly turned in Alva's direction, mouth set in a line.

Aignes added mournfully, "Perhaps that too was why Tenel Ka was sent to the Jai. A Dathomiri man who does not pass the magic," she closed her fist, "at the very least passes the _respect_ for her provenance." All the women save Mara nodded. "And without sisters around her..."

Mara's frown deepened. "She'll be a witch as well, Sister Aignes," she asserted, a bit of tartness to her tone. "Seems to me she just hasn't had a chance yet to pass her awakening rites." 

This was something they both knew for a fact. Tenel Ka was one of their own, and when war had broken out she'd rushed to join Jacen and the Jedi she'd trained with. Neither Teneniel nor Isolder had been pleased that their daughter had interrupted her training here, but they'd stopped short of asking Luke to send her back. Luke was still unsure of how he'd have replied if they had. Tenel Ka _had_ passed her Jedi Trials, and her efforts had saved countless lives -- even now she was busy tending to war refugees.

There just never seemed to be easy answers anymore.

Betheda nodded in Luke's direction, blaring curiosity as she switched back to the previous subject, "So your mate -- he is from Singing Mountain, Sister Mara?"

"No," Mara replied. "He's an offworlder like me."

Surprise spread through the table. “He is not Dathomiri?” Alva asked.

Mara shook her head. "We met far away from here."

“And he came with you to Dathomir?” Aignes put her utensils down. "Offworlder men so rarely choose to come here."

A bit of humor seeped out from Mara, and Luke smiled. He didn’t think Mara would have ever come to Dathomir without his intervention. His own humor faded a little, he thought she’d come to enjoy their visits as much as he had, but come to think of it, he wasn’t sure. The politics of Dathomir always placed her at the center, and he knew firsthand how stifling such a thing could feel. He’d checked to make sure she didn’t feel pressured, but he wasn’t naive enough to think that the pressure wouldn’t be there, regardless. She knew how important the academy was to him, his and this satellite one; it'd become a clear symbol of how much of his life’s work she’d come to share.

Her hand at his arm squeezed a little, warmth seeping through the bond.

Mara smiled enigmatically. “Well, there's more to my husband than meets the eye.”

Betheda’s tone was dry, but not unfriendly, “Isn't there to all our mates? We wouldn't have paid their groom price otherwise.” She looked over to her husband indulgently. The man lowered his eyes and Luke saw his hand creep towards her arm, until it settled on it. Betheda's own hand slid on top of his.

There was a small teasing note in Mara's voice when she addressed the women again. “I _did_ pay an incredibly high groom price for him.”

“Groom price?” Muirne echoed, staring at Luke. "For an offworlder? Most have no mothers to speak of." 

Luke cast a glance over at Mara as Alva asked, “What was it?” 

Mara’s smile turned blinding. “My top of the line starship.”

\--

After the dinner was over, the women went outside, asking Mara to join them, while Alva watched over her husband and sons as they cleared the table. Knowing the women, Mara would probably end up giving a couple of impromptu lessons in the finer points of some Jedi technique for novelty.

Luke sensed her weighing it to decline. She was tired and would rather crawl into their pallet, but he also felt her pragmatic side’s pull. She wasn’t that tired, it wouldn’t be for that long, and she’d long learned to appreciate the value of contacts. These seemed like good women to know. Jedi needed all the good will they could get these days.

And still, he stroked the back of her arm, wanting to sigh. He knew all that reasoning intimately well. Mara turned her head, eyes on him longingly, inched close enough that her cheek almost touched his. 

“You won't stay out too late?” he whispered, letting his hand fall. "It's been a long day."

She chuckled. "No, not planning to." She covered his hand with hers and gave it a squeeze. "You get some rest too. How long as it been since you've had an uninterrupted night's sleep?"

"It's not my fault everyone's in different galactic time zones," he protested.

"I know...and now that everyone's accounted for..." Mara gently tapped the finger of her free hand against his chest.

"Sister Mara," Alva called.

With one last squeeze, Mara pulled herself away and followed the women, grabbing a cup of her tea and the bowl of hwotha berries with cream that she was having for dessert. The din of conversation moved towards the open patio area at the back of the building. He had seen a few of the husbands leave earlier carrying out blankets and a jug of wine, along with a few fruit dishes, and wondered if he should join them instead, but Mara had been right. He felt her nudge through the bond as emphasis.

Luke went back to their room for his sleep tunic and other personal effects. As he walked out to the ‘fresher area, he could hear the laughter and back and forths of the women. Through the Force he felt their curiosity. 

He didn’t envy Mara her time with them; his life had tended to that for a while and often did at times, gathering after gathering, of making acquaintances of this sort and tending to past ones, always with an eye to who would be persuaded, and by what, the results of which was that he’d begun appreciating solitude more, or the chance to tend to those dearest to him -- paradoxically those who needed the least tending.

He settled in to meditate once he was back in their room. This always went effortlessly in Dathomir. He wasn’t sure whether it was the higher-than-average number of Force sensitives in the planet, or if the witches were right and Dathomir was some sort of Force nexus, or perhaps if it had something to do with his own near death experience here so long ago. It could be all three, but he sank into meditation faster than in most other places.

Luke reached out after the session. Mara was outside talking to one of the women, more tired than he’d last felt her, but interested in something. He withdrew, not wanting to intrude, and went over to the pallet, pulling the thin sheet over himself. 

Tomorrow they’d meet with the witch presiding over the ritual. He hadn’t wanted to give it too much thought with Mara around, not wanting his discomfort with it to trouble her unnecessarily though he supposed she must have felt it anyway. She’d sold the ritual as something they could do together in relative anonymity, but there was more to it. 

“A purification ritual?” he had echoed, when she broached it at the beginning of their trip here. Reflexively, he’d added, “You don’t need it.”

She shook her head. “Not like that. Like meditation...clearing the mind that sort of thing. We’ve never really had time to process this.” Her hand fell to her belly, her face tightening a bit. She’d looked pale, but she’d assured him time and again it was only the morning sickness. She'd been reluctant to use the Force to control it, wanting her body to process all the changes naturally. “I mean, we have on a surface level. We know we’re going to have this baby, but...” she’d let her voice trail off before she found it again. 

“When we talk it’s more...am I okay, what tests is Cilghal doing, what will happen next for the Jedi, where will we go. It’s not really figuring out what this means for us now. And I _understand_ that,” she added emphatically, “but maybe...maybe we just need to be away from this for a moment.” She gestured around the ship. “Stay still for a second, so things can settle between us too.”

Luke felt an old conflict stir at her words. Had he put other things before her? Before _them_? He wouldn’t blame her for being angry, but--

Mara brought her arms around his waist, her cheek warm against his chest, warm even through his tunic. After a moment, she pulled away to look up at him. “I know you don’t want any of this. Not another conflict. Not another war.”

Luke could only stare at her upturned face, the dear lines of it, the openness of it. He didn’t, and the exhaustion hit him suddenly, all the tangle of feelings he’d shelved since the disaster at Duro, Ithor before that.... More than anything, he wanted to go somewhere far away with her, with their son, away from this gathering maelstrom of anguish. Life is risk, he'd told himself. 

But how could they risk bringing a child into the world _now_?

He firmly pushed the thought aside, bringing his arms around Mara. They'd never run away before. They weren't going to do it now.

“It’s a good thing to do this now. I feel it.” Mara closed her eyes and he could feel the conviction from her. He knew then he couldn’t say no. 

“We bury our feelings so much by necessity, Luke. We don’t want to worry others, we don’t want to give ourselves away and make them doubt.” She pulled away again to meet his eyes. “But I don’t want to do that right now. I want to meet all of this head on. Hold it in the present.”

Luke stared up towards the rafters. It was another way of looking at it. Not running away, rather...changing the focus for a while, perhaps. That was why they were here in a small town about to undergo a ritual even the locals found quaint.

There was power in rituals, he knew, not just in the actual process so much as what they unlocked in their participants. Was that what was so discomfiting about the whole thing underneath it all? After all, Mara had been right, there was no better time to take a moment for themselves, and yet he remained oddly uneasy. As Luke drifted off to sleep he had the macabre mental image of shaking an anthill, the insects dashing out.

\--

He was home again, among the creams and whites of the living room, the red and yellow rug on the floor, the ever present hum of machinery in the dry air.

His aunt was worried. Her eyes darted over the room as she grabbed a throw blanket here, a cushion there. She’d looked everywhere already, Luke knew.

Where _was_ the screwdriver? They’d been looking all morning in under the all cushions, and in her room, and his aunt was just getting more worried. Dama was just going to have a baby, and Aunt Beru wanted to fix the baby an old blanket, but her mending stitcher broke, so they needed the little screwdriver to fix it first. 

“You can give the baby another one of my blankets,” Luke suggested, trailing behind her. “I have a lot. I don’t need 'em.”

Aunt Beru looked at him without really seeing him. He could tell she was still thinking of the screwdriver, and she bent to look under the chairs for the gazillionth time. “That blanket belonged to me when I was a baby, Luke. It’s special. I can mend it; we just need to find that screwdriver.”

She didn’t want to bother his uncle who was busy. This was harvest season. But this was important too. Luke followed her down to the garage where his uncle was inputing commands on some droids. 

“I can’t find the screwdriver for my ‘stitcher,” his aunt said, but what she felt was worried-worried, much more than when dinner was going to be late, but less than when his uncle had business out in Mos Eisely and came back after sundown. It still felt bad.

“I told Dama I’d have that receiving blanket done before the baby came...”

“Where did you last leave it?” Uncle Owen asked, not looking up from the droid’s access panel.

“I can’t remember. I know you’re busy, but--”

With a sigh, Uncle Owen pulled himself away. What he was doing was important, Luke felt a slight press, like his uncle needed to do this before something, but he turned from the droid, and wiped his hands on a nearby washcloth, then put a hand on his aunt’s shoulder.

He was looking at her in the face, as if he could tell how worried she was. Of course, he could, Luke thought. Uncle Owen had to feel it too. 

“The baby's due soon, isn’t it?”

His aunt nodded. “She told me this morning after the midwife came over. Probably this week. It’s her second, they’re always faster.”

Luke followed them back to the living room. He sensed that press of something still in his uncle -- that he should be working with that droid? But his aunt...Luke scrunched his face. She was important, too, he got from his uncle. Enough to put the droid aside.

Luke stared over to where Aunt Beru was beginning to look under the cushions with his uncle looking along the other side of the room, moving over jars of pottery and boxes of spare parts his uncle hadn’t gotten around to moving to the storage room.

“Luke and I searched all over the room,” his aunt was muttering. “I remember having it with me last night...”

They were both worried, his aunt about the blanket, his uncle about something else _and_ his aunt, and they needed to find the screwdriver. Luke just wanted them both to stop being this worried. It felt like little ant stings in his head.

He thought of when his tunic had caught on the door and ripped last week. Aunt Beru had told him he needed to be careful, but it was okay, she could fix it. After dinner she’d gotten her mending stitcher to do it, but it wasn’t tight enough so she stopped, and got the little screwdriver out, tweaking it fast and easy. 

Luke stopped at the memory. It was fast and easy. He liked the feeling of _fast and easy_ much more than worried. Now everything felt worried. Luke closed his eyes wishing for fast and easy...something prickled. He opened his eyes.

“It’s under the couch,” he said.

“I just looked there,” his uncle replied going over to the far end of the room. His aunt was pulling the couch cushions up again.

“No, it’s near the middle. That’s why you can’t see it. Behind the leg thing.”

“I don’t--”

His aunt’s voice rang out triumphant. She felt _happy_ , the worry gone. “I got it! It’s right here.”

Luke beamed. “Told you.”

His uncle went over to his aunt and looked at the little screwdriver she’d pulled out, then at him. Luke felt both of them surprised and amazed, and he was proud. He found it. Now they could stop being worried. But then his uncle turned back to him, and Luke felt something very different, sudden and _cold_. 

Luke took a step back. 

“How did you know?” his uncle asked in a low voice, the kind of voice he used when Luke did something very dangerous and wrong, like climb too high up, like wander too far, when he needed to _come inside right now_. The serious voice.

There was something cold in his aunt too as her head snapped towards his uncle, less cold in her, but in both of them. It made the shivery feeling in Luke's insides worse.

“Owen, it’s fine,” she said in a strained voice.

His uncle crossed the room in two steps, it seemed, and then he was looming over him. Luke took another step back.

“I’m only going to ask again once, Luke,” he said very slowly. “How did you know?”

“I-I-I just knew. I didn’t do anything wrong. Aunt Beru was so worried and you--”

“You took it, didn’t you?”

He shook his head quickly, looking at his uncle in wide-eyed confusion. He thought...his uncle knew. His uncle knew he hadn’t. He did. “No! I just knew--y-you know--”

His aunt came over. “Owen, it’s fine," she said quickly. "We found it. You should probably--”

“You took it like a game, Luke.”

Luke shook his head fiercely. His uncle _knew_ he hadn’t. “I didn’t! I felt--”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” his uncle snapped and his face seemed to grow even tighter. “This is not a game.”

Luke went still, feeling the cold in his uncle _stinging_ him. 

“It’s not a game,” his uncle said in that serious tone. “That’s stealing.”

“No,” he gasped. He wouldn’t _ever_. “I didn’t--”

“Apologize to your aunt for stealing.”

“I didn’t!” How could they think that? He’d just wanted to _help_.

“You did,” his uncle countered, voice hard.

“Owen--” his aunt laid a hand on his shoulder. He shook it off not taking his eyes off Luke.

“You did,” he repeated louder this time. “You did.”

Luke could only shake his head.

“You are not a thief!” his uncle yelled loud enough that a shake built somewhere in Luke’s spine and he drew back against the wall, wanting to yell back that he wasn’t, but his uncle’s face was red as he yelled it again, advancing half a step forward.

“Never do that again! Never!” The entire room seemed to shake and Luke did too, because that cold feeling was all he could feel right now. It was _everywhere_. 

Luke shook as he buried his head in his hands.

Go away, he whispered to it silently, feeling his throat close. Go away. It didn’t, just kept stinging. He felt like it wouldn’t ever go away.

“That’s enough.” The sound of his aunt’s voice broke through, steely. “You’ve scared him enough.” 

Her arms wrapped around him, drawing him to her, and he pressed his head against her chest, clutching at her, sobbing now, but it was leaving. The cold was leaving.

“Beru--”

She held him tight enough that he felt her bones, and the cold was almost gone. 

“We’re going to talk about this later,” she told his uncle in her serious voice.

The cold became a shadow, still staining his uncle, but there was something else...worry? He wasn't sure, and it wasn't good, but it was better. At least he knew that feeling. Luke felt it from his uncle every time he scolded him, every time Luke asked about his real parents, or why his uncle and aunt never had any babies of their own.

His uncle Owen's footsteps were soft as he left the room, but Luke kept on clinging to his aunt; no cold, it was just his aunt, warm, and a little sad, loving him _this much_ , her arms tight around him.

“I didn’t do it,” he cried against her tunic. The cold was gone but he _needed_ her to believe him. “I didn’t do it.”

“I know, Luke. I know.” Her arms remained wound tight around his shoulders, but her voice sounded different, even if he couldn’t pinpoint how. She did believe him though. That, he was sure of, and he found himself relaxing into her embrace.

Little by little her usual smell of pallies with a faint note of boontaspice had faded into something different, and stronger, like...morning dew with a hint of berries and mint,...still familiar. Wakefulness beckoned gently, making him stir.

“Shhh.” Her lips were soft by his temple, arms warm and still tight around him. Wakefulness slowly receded.

I’m dreaming, Luke thought with a sigh. I’m dreaming.

And then he dreamed no more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh, have even more poignant fluff for the holidays. Happy New Year, everyone. May 2018 be much better than 2017. *confetti*

Luke felt something brush his neck and shifted away, sleep heavy on him. He was comfortable and warm under the blankets. In the back of his mind, he sensed Mara beside him, felt the weight of her arm slung along his stomach. It must have been her hair what he’d felt. 

He turned his head, and heard her sleepy sigh, felt the graze of her arm as it slid across his hip. A few moments passed, and he felt Mara turn on the pallet facing him, her arm sliding back as she shifted.

Sunlight glared behind his closed eyelids now that he was more aware, and Luke turned to lay on his side facing away. Mara shifted closer against him, her nose by his neck, a little cold. Her hand near his hip was not cold at all as it trailed...lower.

Luke blinked awake, and looked over his shoulder blearily at Mara.

She gave him a slow smile, her face framed by sleep tousled hair, faint pillow lines on her face. “Hey.”

And her touch reminded him...Luke was suddenly not that drowsy anymore.

Mara whispered in his ear, “I thought we could--”

With a gasped out “Yeah,” he turned towards her, dropping his head to kiss by her ear, intending to gather her up in his arms. What happened was rather, she jerked away with a gasp and fumbled awkwardly for a few seconds until her underwear was summarily stripped and flung away from the bed. 

The rest went along those lines in a dizzying, euphoric rush. After, when Luke slid to his side, he realized his sleep pants were still on, which prompted a chuckle as he kicked them off his ankles and curled around Mara, lifting himself up on an elbow.

Mara was looking up at him, face awash with color, eyes bright, and Luke trailed hand down her nightshift-clad shoulder. Her body _was_ different, he thought as her hand rose to his cheek. It was a pity it’d been that fast, he would have liked to explore just _how_ \--

There was a hesitant knock at the door. Not a request, Luke sensed, but to inform.

Dismay crossed Mara's face and her hand dropped. "Breakfast."

Luke let himself flop back onto the pallet, and tried not to think about the embarrassment that awaited them downstairs. It always took them a while to adapt to how casual Dathomiri were about personal matters. 

“We have the head witch of the ritual coming to meet us sometime after too.” 

Luke sat up and rubbed at his face. There were ways to keep to themselves, but these often ended up drawing more attention, and sometimes suspicion. It was just better to deal with the awkwardness. “Right.” 

It _would_ have been nice to linger a bit. There’d been a few months after her recovery when things had gone back to normal, but even then they hadn’t coupled with this kind of intensity. He looked over to where Mara was sliding off the pallet. She hadn't even gotten her nightshift off.

“I heard about this,” she mused with a half grin, going over to the washstand. “Thought it was exaggeration.”

Luke gave her a tight smile. “Han made a couple of suggestive remarks I didn’t want to think about.” 

She handed a washcloth to him. 

“We’ll have more time later on,” she said as she cleaned up. 

“Oh, it’s fine.” Luke kissed her cheek and went for their clothing. 

He felt her eyes perch on him, a slight teasing lilt to her voice. “Really?”

”Out of my head, Jade,” he threw over his shoulder.

She laughed. “You enjoying saying that too much. But I feel well and...” She shrugged, going to sit on the pallet. “There’s nothing stopping us.” He went to sit next to her and handed her the clothes. 

“Except breakfast.” Luke offered her a wry grin.

Her eyes narrowed. “Actually.” Mara took the clothes and pushed them to the side, “I’m not that hungry...” She pulled the nightshift over her head as she shifted onto his lap. 

“...for breakfast,” she purred against his neck.

\--

They were late. 

The meal was outside, the table moved to the small back patio under the lone tree there, bowls with fruit, porridge, and broiled fish arranged in the same style as the evening before. Only the three witches were seated around it on blankets, Alva and the men elsewhere in the lodgings.

“Mara,” Muirne, the brunette who’d sat beside her the evening before called in her direction, “Alva wanted to send a plate up to your room, but we told her you were still fucking.”

Mara ducked her head, muttering, "Kriffing hell" under her breath.

"Yes, the match has gone _very_ well," Muirne continued to Betheda and Aignes without missing a beat, "Tare now sleeps in Jueni and Uyer's chamber -- by his own request, too. Jueni's own lodgings should be ready by the time she passes her rites in two months." She lifted a hand. "No mating until then."

Luke went to get Mara's plate, feeling cautious relief from her, but still some wariness.

"Risky," Betheda was saying as he passed the plate to Mara. "My mother said the same thing to my older sister once she moved her mate to our chambers. She ended up waddling to her rites. She'd buy my absence with sweets a commoner two hills over made." She sighed in remembrance. "I got so fat that season."

"I waddled to _my_ rites too." Muirne smirked. "Rima was so scared my mother would beat him, but she gifted him with the flask of honey wine that was going to be used to catch whuffa instead."

Aignes cackled. "Devious woman. You know then the prohibition only _encourages_ them."

All the witches laughed.

The host’s husband had come out and was calling to Luke from the lodging's back porch are. He held a small cup the size of a shot glass.

“Here,” he said unceremoniously. “For you. Your name?" 

“Iltar,” Luke answered with his usual Dathomiri alias. Anyone could easily put two and two together given Mara's name and the HoloNet, but Dathomiri still paid less attention to the HoloNet than other populations. Luke stared at the glass in dismay, suspecting where this was headed. “What is it?”

“Tuya oil.”

Luke's knowledge of Dathomiri herbs and concoctions was near nil, all the more reason to be cautious about special offerings.

The man’s sense took on amusement, and he smiled. “I heard from Alva this is only the first child you’ve sired?” Luke nodded, spying a note of pity underneath, but it dissipated and the man continued, “Past the purging cycles a teeming witch will require her mate’s body all the more. Tuya oil is known to increase stamina.”

Recognizing that these were normal matters to discuss here did little to deter the wave of embarrassment, and Luke stared off to where Alva's older son was picking up empty plates.

“Go on,” the man urged. “Drink. An unsatisfied teeming witch can be ill-humored.” The man made a vague noise of warning. 

As he thanked him, Luke consoled himself with the thought that if it was something that disagreed with him he could always fall back on detoxifying techniques.

He was downing the oil as the boy came back, his lanky arms full of dishes. The man stopped him and patted his shoulder, radiating affection. He took several dishes from the boy, murmuring something too low for Luke to catch. The boy beamed, his steps lighter as he went further into dwelling.

Luke was distracted from the exchange by the clinging of the oil to his throat, its horrible pungent aftertaste nearly making him gag.

The man laughed at his reaction. “Come, I’ll get you some ila juice to wash down the foul taste. I am Tenos."

Luke nodded. The women must have moved onto other topics, because Mara felt more at ease. Alva had gone over to them and was talking animatedly. The younger son that had shown them their quarters headed towards the group with an instrument resembling the viol, Alva's face glowing as she beckoned him over.

“Our dining quarters are through here. There is food set aside.” Tenos gestured behind him. "You can join us if you're done attending to your mistress."

“Wife,” Luke corrected.

Tenos’ eyebrows raised. “Oh.” He gestured to Luke’s arm, taking in the absence of a band. “I thought--”

Luke waved a hand. He supposed Alva hadn't mentioned the groom price story from last night. “It’s all right.”

He followed Tenos to a smaller room where the other two men congregated around a sunken hearth, bowls in hand, a tea kettle over the fire. The food arranged at a nearby table. Tenos gestured to it as he passed Luke an empty dish and left the room.The two men from last night were mid-conversation, their demeanor far more casual than it had been at the dinner. 

“She didn't come down today either,” the bald man was saying as Luke served himself. Tenos came back with a glass of a purplish liquid that he handed to Luke. Ila juice. Luke took a sip. Sweeter than juma juice. It did help wash out the nastiness of the oil. 

"They keep to themselves." The gray haired man plucked a piece of fruit from his bowl. "As if they like being outcasts."

“With two husbands,” the bald man shook his head, “she must be very rich.”

Tenos came back and took a seat on the floor, pulling the tea kettle from the smoldering fire.

"Traditionalist witches." The bald man made a sound of reproach. "Daughters of old war clans, more like. Hoarding their Nightsister spoils and waiting for more bloodshed."

"Feh, they can keep their spoils and their might. They are already fading into the dusk, while Singing Mountain's fortune keeps pouring down like water. Look at Agama's Cry -- it was barely an supply outpost five seasons ago, the same is true for Frozen Meadows to the west or Fairpond down south.” The gray haired man's eyes landed on Luke. “I am Vasti.”

Luke offered the fake name to them as Tenos distributed three cups with some sort of tea.

The bald man tipped his head in acknowledgment and went on, “Muirne says some in the far west even refuse to trade with the Hapans. Can you imagine such foolishness? There's no stopping the new ways.” He gestured to himself. “Rima."

"Even teaching men magic?" Vasti asked with a teasing smile as if this were a familiar topic between them.

"That's different." Rima shook his head firmly. "And you'd still do better teaching your boy to help manage his wife's purse than fill his head with dreams of fire starting and wind raising." He gave them a wry look. "Those machines are not as rare as they once were."

Tenos and Vasti chuckled.

Luke smiled politely, and Tenos ducked his head, raising an apologetic hand. "I am sorry. Your wife is a Jai teacher--"

Luke shook his head. "No, no. I understand."

"Well," Rima conceded, a bit abashed now, "and it is _Jai_ magic." He looked at Vasti and Tenos, before turning to Luke. "It _is_ different."

Luke pursed his lips. “I don’t think it’s different at base. It’s a question of method. Je-Jai methods are different.” 

“Yes.” Vasti took a sip from his cup. “Like in the demonstrations during the Games. They don’t sing or move.”

“There is something...strange," Rima said. "About magic without singing or moving." 

All three men nodded. It was probably as uncanny to them to use the Force in silence as it was for him and other Jedi to see it marshaled through song and movement, Luke reflected. As a Jedi, it'd been difficult _not_ to see all the complicated chanting and gestures as a stumbling block, a distraction to mastering adequate control. It’d been a while before he understood that there was a discipline to the singing and gestures as well. 

“My youngest,” Vasti looked down at his cup, “Is very talented. When he was born, the seer said he’d be a valuable breeder.”

Luke stifled his own expression of distaste. 

“But he's...headstrong and difficult.At her most vexed, Betheda has mentioned maybe finding out more about the Jai school.”

The other two men's eyes widened, and Luke’s head snapped up. Most of the academy’s male apprentices were orphans, and despite Kirana Ti and Streen’s efforts at educating the populace, there were no shortage of rumors about Jai-trained male spellcasters, few of them good. Families of standing remained reluctant to enroll their Force talented male children and risk them not making good matches, just as they strongly discouraged female apprentices in the school from making matches there, often partnering them with a socially acceptable mate before letting them attend. A man who was strong and untrained might be highly sought after, but a trained man was all but shunned. Frustrated, Streen had even suggested their male apprentices hide their training, something Kirana Ti, Mara, and Luke had firmly opposed. The repercussions could be far-reaching and catastrophic.

Luke met Vasti's eyes. “The prospects for your son...”

Vasti nodded. “It is too early to tell, but it does not help he want to imitate his older sister, and not understand his place. Betheda worries that he might not take well to being matched. One never knows what will happen when a son goes into another witch's hearth.” He sighed. “He is our youngest. Perhaps we have been too soft."

Luke felt sympathy gather from Tenos and Rima.

"Even if learning from the Jai might suit him, no woman will offer for a Jai spellcaster as her daughter's mate," he continued, "Not even commoners." Despondency mired his features. "If it were only that, but Jai spellcasters...they _leave_...That Eachann might depart for the stars and meet his doom there greatly troubles Betheda.” Not only her -- that was clear from the man’s sense, his shoulder's drooping. "But the unhappiness of a child is no small matter either, even a son."

Luke's chest squeezed a little. Most of the male apprentices of the satellite academy's first class _had_ left once they passed their Trials, even before war had broken out and Luke had been forced to convene his Jedi. Dathomir hadn't give them much choice.

But he also thought of of his nephews, of Jaina, apprenticed to Mara, and Jacen and Anakin, both apprenticed to him, even now facing unknown dangers. Han and Leia had never taken lightly what it meant for their children to be so Force talented. From all those kidnapping attempts to their involvement in the current conflict, it had always been a heavy burden. 

It was his and Mara’s burden now.

Their child, just as Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin had been --and still were--, in the midst of danger. The Solo children might have not called the danger unto themselves as children, but to choose to become a Jedi was to actively seek it out. To place oneself in peril for the sake of others. Would their son choose that for himself? 

How would he and Mara bear the burden of that choice? 

Luke thought of Jacen’s struggles with his abilities. Or what if their son simply decided _no_? How would they raise a child like that?

Tenos' voice brought him back. "You said it's too early yet, Vasti," he said softly. "He only needs Betheda to make the right match. Headstrong or not, it doesn't matter. Women these days are more accommodating than they were in the times of our fathers -- even witches." 

Rima leaned forward and spoke in a similarly hushed tone, "He's right, things are different. When we matched Jueni with Tare, Muirne herself made an oath to his mother he would be treasured. She granted him the chance to see his kin as many times as the season permits so that they might see for themselves how he fares."

"Alva has requested that from all the witches offering for our eldest son, though she herself is not a witch," Tenos added. "Many women set this condition now."

Rima reached to put a hand on Vasti's shoulder. "It is no longer sufficient for a woman that her son only have a full belly and not be taken by Nightsister nor forest -- she now lives long enough to ask her sister to answer for her son's happiness too. Betheda will find young Eachann a witch fitting to him, you'll see. He'll make a good hearth and need nothing else." 

He straightened up, meeting both Tenos and Luke's eyes. "Happiness is a matter of making the right match."

\--

Luke went back outside to join Mara after helping the men clean up after their meal. The women had left probably to ready themselves to leave for Singing Mountain and Mara sat alone in the blanket under the tree, the table and all else already taken away. 

Her skin through her sleeveless green tunic had a slight shimmer under the mid-morning sun that peeked through the leaves. She had a cup of the ubiquitous tea in hand and Luke smiled as he sat beside her.

“Is the tea growing on you?”

“Ugh. no,” Mara answered, but her tone was absentminded. “Mother Vila is due here any moment now.” 

Luke passed her a sidelong glance. “You’ve been surprisingly quiet about the details.”

She turned to him and put the cup down. “Not at all. I don’t know all the details either. I assume it'll be like the basic structure of the awakening rites.”

“Now, I know you're not diving into this without knowing it forwards and backwards." He gave her a light nudge.

“Kirana Ti told me about the intention behind it.”Mara's eyes flicked to his in challenge, mood lifting. 

“So it could be a ritual with me going on a whuffa hunt for two days,” he teased. “As long as its for the health of our unborn child?” He adopted a dramatic tone and raised a fist. “Purified by the crushing battle between me and a wily worm.”

She laughed. “Not quite.”

Whuffa worms were prized for their leathery skins, but trapping them was less than glamorous work, often involving a man or several baiting the large worm with some liquor and then grabbing and pulling at it as it drank. Han had been involved in whuffa catching the first time he’d been on Dathomir when the academy had been no more than a dream. He’d emerged with a healthy respect both for the worm and the leather. Mara had gifted him a holster she’d had made from the material for his name day a few years back.

Luke had been called to catch whuffa in their first visit to Dathomir together when they’d gone to some minor village, so Mara could talk to a high ranking witch. Mara had reacted strongly against it. He suspected somehow the menial quality of it put her off, but it was nothing they’d ever spoken about at length. He’d always thought it was strange, both of them had done their share of drudgery over the years. 

Mara leaned against him, smelling of morning grass and mountain air. “We are not doing this for the health of our unborn child. The ritual is for _mothers-to-be_...those who've had some...upheaval.”

He wanted to put his arm around her. The impulse had just surfaced when hers slid around his shoulder. 

"Like meditation, you said." Luke paused. "Why not just between us?"

Mara stared off past the fence. "I don't know. I had feeling that we'd interrupt it somehow if there wasn't some larger..."

"Structure?"

"Mechanism, yes."

He pondered it. There was something to having a set framework. Mara had always gravitated towards that more than he did.

"And I still get the most out of something more dynamic than meditation alone. There's moving meditation, but Dathomiri Force use is even more...grounded and intense than that."

Luke nodded. "So, broad strokes, what does it entail?"

"Stones.”

"The Rite of _Stones_?" Luke feigned surprise. “You don’t say.”

She chuckled. “An inkstone, a singing stone, and a river stone. One we bring with us, two we acquire in the mountains.”

He made a disapproving sound. “I am not going rock climbing with you. That's the line.”

Mara laughed. “Mountain climbing. Osha will do most of the work.”

“Good," he dropped his head to nuzzle her cheek, "Actually, why don't we send him alone and stay in. He can bring us all sorts of nice rocks.”

Mara lifted a hand to ruffle his hair. “Where’s your love of adventure, Skywalker?”

“In my X-wing back in the _Shadow_. Half a day from here.” He lifted a warding finger as he straightened up, before she could interrupt. “I don’t miss it.”

“ _Now_. Just you wait a couple more days, Skywalker. You'll be unbearable.” 

Luke raised his chin. "Oh, come on, like you're not the first one to start clawing the walls at the mere _suggestion_ of down time. Mountain climbing for our unborn is new though."

Mara looked skyward in exasperation, but there was a smile inching up on her lips. “I told you. _We’re_ doing it for _us_ ," she said lightly. "You know it's not really mountain climbing either.” 

Luke didn't respond, opting to settle against her, while she told him about the other women. Muirne, the brunette witch who was Rima’s wife had three children, all girls. Betheda, wife to Vasti, who had spoken about his Force sensitive boy, had a boy and a girl, as Luke had pieced up. The remaining witch, Aignes, had left her mate at their village caring for an ailing relative. They had one girl. Tenos and Alva had two boys.

“It seems so easy for them.” Mara had a wistful expression on her face, her pragmatic nature at odds with it. Ever since her recovery he’d seen it more, almost as if she’d been scared to show anything but fierce determination while she'd fought her illness, as if all her hopes and longing had been channeled into a rock hard will to live.

“Even though these women are traders. They do their business then they go back to their homes and hometowns. Their families have lived there for generations.”

“I remember that not being so great,” Luke said dryly. “Most families back home lived there for generations.” He stopped, gentling his tone. “Dathomir is not Tatooine though.” He thought of Vasti's son, the one who _might not take well to being matched_. 

A breeze whispered through Mara’s hair as her expression turned pensive. “I know.” Her gaze lowered. “Not for everyone. It can be stifling...it _is_ stifling--” She laughed self-consciously. “I don't know why--” 

Luke slid his own arm around her waist. “It's a home, you mean," he said gently. "They have a home.” Roots, he thought with a pang.

She looked up at him with a sad smile. “We have a home.” The smile faded. “Maybe too many of them.”

He intuited she meant the constant back and forth between Yavin 4 and Coruscant. That had been the state of affairs since she’d fallen ill. There _had_ been a brief but wonderful time at Yavin 4 after Mara had finished her affairs for Karrde, but before that it’d been a constant negotiation of time and obligations. And now this...if war ever came to Coruscant...

“You were dreaming last night.” Luke sensed some caution when she spoke again. “You don’t...usually.”

His uncle’s face floated up in his memory. He had, hadn't he? “I didn't mean to wake you."

Mara shook her head. "It's fine, just I could...feel your aunt."

That happened, but not very often, not under these circumstances, he thought with a frown. He wasn't sick or hurt. "It was more like an old memory than a dream," he said offhandedly. "About when I was a child. I guess...it’s part of the standing still thing you mentioned. I haven't thought about it in a long time.”

“What was it?” Mara's hands played restlessly along the cup. Sudden sense impressions from elsewhere were always a little odd, even with the bond. Then there was the matter of being _woken up_ by them. He winced a little and rubbed her arm. It'd caught him by surprise. He'd lengthen his meditation session tonight. It wouldn't do to be worrying her.

“It was just one time I got scolded.”

Her expression cleared and he felt a bit lighter. “That was it?” She grinned. “What crazy stunt did you do?”

“Nothing like that.” Luke waved a hand. “Uncle Owen thought I had taken something I’d just found. I used the Force without meaning to,” he clarified to her confused look. “Pointed out the location of my aunt’s screwdriver. Without having any explanation he could see, my uncle thought I had stolen it.”

“Did you explain?”

Luke shook his head. “I must have been five or six. I didn’t know I’d done something out of the ordinary...," he thought back to his uncle's face. Not angry, really. Deathly afraid. "My uncle knew though. He knew I hadn't stolen it.”

She was speechless for a moment, the nervousness flaring into unease. 

“I never thought they were those kind of people,” she murmured.

Her eyes had taken on a distant look, with a cast that spoke of things she’d rather forget. They’d both had their share of encounters with those who’d feared Force users, but Mara’s perception of them had been shaped by knowing what it meant to be a target. She’d had no one; her own abilities had been only shadow of what they’d become.

“They weren’t,” he assured her, reaching for her hand and threading his fingers between hers. “My uncle was never afraid _of_ me, he was afraid _for_ me. In his eyes, discouraging me from using my abilities was just another way of keeping me safe.”

Luke stopped for a moment, considering the last. For so long he’d thought the best way to deal with danger was to go face it directly. Meet it head on. Part of him still did. He’d scarcely had to think about doing so, but now, with so many at risk, it wasn't just him. Choosing to face danger directly felt different when it was a choice made for someone else. To send _someone else_ into danger for you, someone else’s _children_...your _own_...

Mara stayed quiet. 

“Others know now what it means to be like us now,” he continued. “It might not even ring as different when there’s Jacen and Jaina and Anakin and...” He stopped. Despite the press of anxiety over what would come, _that_ remained, something he’d only dreamed of ages ago. His life’s work, theirs, bearing fruit.

“What if he doesn’t want to be like us?”

Her whispered question made him stop. Hadn’t he just wondered that earlier? He supposed that was the drawback of the bond, or maybe just knowing someone this well.

Luke was about to address it when Alva walked over with a matron in a gray tunic. The necklace the older woman wore had several skulls on it, either small reptiles or birds, and her leather strap was weighed with variously shaped stones.

He and Mara stood, and he didn't need to reach out at all to perceive the witch’s powerful Force presence. This must be Mother Vila, the seer.

The designation of seer was yet another specialization, these were guardians of traditions, mistresses of ceremony, fortune tellers, and historians all rolled into one. Mother Rell, the wizened witch he’d met the first time he came to Dathomir, and who passed away shortly after his departure, had been one of these. Luke didn’t remember who took her place after in Singing Mountain.

“You are Sister Mara?” the witch asked before Alva could introduce them. Her eyes passed over Luke.

Without him exerting himself through the Force most witches couldn’t tell the scope of his abilities, but some sensitive witches could glimpse it, and certainly witches who made their livelihood through the Arts were highly sensitive, and those who were seers all the more so, he imagined. They wouldn't know he was trained, however. 

Mara raised her chin. “I am.” 

“This is Mother Vila, she leads all the rites in Agama’s Cry.” Alva offered the old woman refreshment which she declined and left them.

For a long moment, Mother Vila scrutinized Mara silently. Luke could sense Mara restraining the impulse to draw away. 

“Should we talk alone?” Mara asked.

The witch eyed Luke again. 

“No. You wish him here. Strongly,” Mother Vila said. “The wishes of a teeming witch, especially, are to be respected. Alva said you wanted to petition to join the Rite of Stones.”

“I do.”

“You are different,” she pronounced. “Jai?”

“Yes. But I know the ways of Allya and the _Book of Law_." She gestured to the strap around her wrist. "I have passed the awakening rites.”

Mother Vila hesitated. “Have you? Why do you seek the old ways, Jai?" Her expression was tinged with reproach, suspicion pouring off her. "These are serious matters, not curiosities.”

“They are serious to me." Mara swallowed. "Just this past season I didn’t know whether I would live or die. Now, I carry a child. It's...difficult to understand.”

Luke's eyes flitted towards her, surprised at her bluntness. She wasn’t referring to the cure. That was its own mystery. Something deeper.

Mara drew a breath. “My...heart is restless.”

Mother Vila grunted out, “I see.” A few more moments passed. “You might not find what you seek in this. These are rites for a daughter of Allya. They might not conform with your Jai ways.”

“They might not," Mara agreed, "but Jai have no...rites of this sort.” 

“Strange.” Mother Vila didn’t say more on the matter, but her sense seemed more settled. “You might not be daughter of Allya, but you _are_ a sister of the magic and have awakened as a witch. By the precepts of the _Book of Law_ , you have a right to join."

"Thank you, Mother," Mara paused. With some uncharacteristic hesitance, she added, "As a Jai there will be parts I cannot claim or can only claim differently. Is this permissible within the rite?"

Mother Vila stared at her and Luke could feel her probing, he assumed, for assurance of Mara's seriousness. That was clear enough to him, as well as her desire to go through with it. The seer herself had to have seen it. She wouldn't feel so composed otherwise.

"It is permissible," she finally said, "to find in it whatever grants you peace. That is the purpose of the rite. I will leave you a list of the material to procure. Are you of sound body enough to travel to the Sacred Paths of Green Mountain?”

Mara nodded.

“Then ready your mate, your rancor and your things. The opening rites will be done at my lodgings at sundown. The next will take place along the Sacred Paths over the next two days.”

\--

They set out to market area, while Mother Vila moved on to talk to the other witch, who'd kept herself largely out of sight. No mean feat considering the lodgings weren't that big.The market wasn’t too far; it along the path through which they’d arrived at Agama’s Cry a wide area lined up with stands. Smaller than the market at Singing Mountain, it was busy, but not overly crowded, and they could easily weave through the various carts, and the wooden crates of food and wares set up along the street. While Singing Mountain’s market circulated goods from even outside of Dathomir, the market at here seemed to be geared entirely towards the locals.

“Dazar on a stick,” one girl called, balancing a tray with some sort of kabob from one of the nearby shops, using the Force to augment her voice’s reach. 

The list they'd been given bordered on the mundane: bowls, inkstone, a candle, some fruit, among other things to make camp.

“I thought at least one eye of a sleen,” Luke quipped, reaching for the flimsi Mara had been given as they ducked out of the way of a couple of women dressed in muted lizard hides leading a herd of nerf-sized reptiles through the winding street, two teenage boys behind them, their excitement at being at the market clear on their faces.

“Hilarious.” Mara pulled it away from his grasp and folded it, slipping it into the sack she carried. “There are no sleen in Dathomir.” She flashed him a pointed look. “It’s not Dagobah, Luke. You keep wanting to inflict it on everyone.”

“They have marshes here,” he protested as they passed through the fishmonger’s stall past two women in conversation in front of it dressed in earth-colored tunics, their male companions holding various heavy cloth sacks with their purchases, much like the empty one Mara carried. Several young children scurried underfoot, calling taunts to each other. Two men, their arm bands prominent, simpler than those of Rima and Vasti, were carrying several jugs. 

Mara lowered her voice and continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “And besides, witches, not sorceresses.” She looked on ahead to where the path curved, a stall selling necklaces made of brightly colored gems, a few teen girls in front of it under the watchful eye of an older man. 

Luke raised his eyebrows at her. "Aren't they the same -- ow,” he protested as she elbowed him slightly and they turned away from that path. This was a preferred ribbing since Mara had passed the awakening rites. Old Jedi Order texts were borderline defensive in their delineation of Jedi from sorcerer. He suspected wounded pride might have had not a little to do with it. Yoda and his Jedi _had_ been repulsed by the witches, after all.

They wandered out past the livestock area, past the stalls selling iridescent lizard hides, to the corner set aside for garden produce, colorful fruits and vegetables arranged in crates. He was better with haggling than Mara, having spent much of his childhood accompanying his aunt to the markets, so it was he who approached the vendor and asked for his price. 

Mara wasn’t bad necessarily, but her demeanor always carried an air of combativeness that vendors could pick out from a mile, no matter how hard she’d tried to conceal it. The one time he’d mentioned it when they’d first married she’d turned sullen and prickly; he might not have done so with the right amount of delicacy, but they’d only been getting used to each other then.

Luke caught a faint smile on Mara’s face when they began walking past the stall after she'd put the purchases away. “Now, I know that good mood can’t be because of the good price I got on the ila.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Did you have to tell him I was pregnant?” she chided. “And how mad I’d be if I wasn’t properly fed?”

Luke chuckled and shrugged. “I was stopped this morning actually, by our host’s husband offering me some kind of oil.”

From the way she groaned, he knew that topic had come up between the witches. “Remind me again why we come to this planet full of Force users with no concept of privacy or tact?”

“Because you look really great in their short tunics.”

Mara went to elbow him again, but he’d expected it and with a burst of inspiration he pulled her by the offensive elbow off to a smaller marginal path between the some kiosks, and kissed her full on the lips. There, the music and the chatter wasn’t as loud. He slid a hand over her cheek as he slowly drew away.

Mara smiled, her eyes radiant. “What is this all about?”

“Crowded in the main street.” He dropped his head to kiss her again, the pad of his thumb rubbing lightly over her cheekbone. Her arms looped around his neck as she stepped in closer, her fingers clasped at his nape. 

“No particular reason?” 

“Other than the tunic?” But gazing down at her face, the black of her lashes against her cheek, he was robbed of levity by the memory of the nights by her bedside staring at the curve of her neck as starlight played upon it.

Mara's eyes opened, eyes weighed by concern. “What is it?” She slid her palm atop his.

He blinked it away. “Feeling lucky, I guess.”

Mara pulled his head down to kiss him. She was short of breath when he drew away, and he was a little dazed himself at how quickly the mood had changed. A whispery laugh fell from her, but she stepped away gently, gliding her hand down his arm to clasp his and pull him along.

“Let’s keep going and see if we can finish soon. There’s a place not too far from here where we can stop for lunch.”

\--

Going through the market crossing items off the list took longer than they had anticipated. A small, but too loud part of him was aghast that it was...enjoyable -- at the frivolousness of enjoying such a thing _now_.

But...little hopes. Warding off despair was a matter of little hopes, he'd told Mara. Little joys.

Mara was examining some ceramics, bright hair loose about her shoulders, and it seemed the opposite of little. Little perhaps in scope, but vast and boundless in feeling.

“You know, I realized something,” Mara said, putting the piece back carefully. “You don’t speak of your mother much.”

“My mother?”

“Your birth mother. The senator.” She met his eyes. “You don’t talk about her much.”

“Well, we’re not...sure.” This had been Leia’s pet project for a while before war had broken out, shortly after that disastrous wild bantha chase that had lead him to the Fallanasi. “And after being lead so off base...”

Mara nodded slowly. “Is that it? Leia well...she’s pretty certain.”

Luke thought back, the hit to his pride might have made him less curious than he’d have been otherwise, only a year after he’d had that Kueller fiasco to contend with.

“I suppose she is. She knew of her. Senator Amidala was a friend of the Organas apparently.”

“But you don’t know?” Mara pressed gently.

“I...” he let his voice trail off. “I take her at her word. If Leia’s certain, then I believe her. I just...I was looking for the wrong reasons before and now, I--I don’t feel the same push.”

A quizzical expression passed through Mara’s features. “Why?”

“The circumstances, maybe.” They began walking past a gathered group around a stand serving some sort of sausage. He looked over at Mara. “My mother, she’d felt so out of reach all my life. Gone. Even when I looked for her later it was mostly as a symbol, some sort of alternative to my father to help me figure out a way forward.”

She was frowning, he could see her trying to parse it. “But not your father? He wasn’t a symbol?”

“I don’t know....I used to think...I used to think it was a call to be like him, but I wonder if it wasn’t just a call _to_ him.” He smiled ruefully at her. “Maybe this is a kind of...revisionist history.” He adjusted his hold on the bag he was carrying. “She remembers her. Leia.”

“Your mother?”

Luke nodded, catching the surprised lift of her eyebrows. That hadn’t come up apparently. “I asked her about our mother before I told her about our father.” Leia's eyes had shone when she’d broached her memories. It felt like balm to his spirit, something to hold dear before diving into the fray with his father. Leia's dismay and disgust had been palpable once he’d told her. Even now decades later, he still felt it had been a poor trade.

“Well, if that’s so, maybe she got the political acumen from her and you --” He turned to Mara, finding her making a face. “You inherited your father’s fashion sense.”

This was not the first time the topic had been broached. Just before the outbreak of war some datacards had surfaced with some old footage from the HoloNet, full of reports from the middle of the Clone Wars. He hadn’t known how Mara would react. He tried to give her space as usual in matters such as these, but she’d surprised him by sitting to watch them with him, her sense wary, but not despondent or gloomy.

Luke grinned. “He was quite the dashing figure in his time, wasn’t he? He and Ben.”

Mara only radiated playful annoyance. “Right. Kenobi and Skywalker.” She adopted the program narrator’s bombastic emphasis on every word. “The. Jedi. Hammer. Of. Our. Foes.”

Luke snorted out a laugh. 

Mara was smiling. “But, see, we’re back to your father again.” 

“You mentioned his fashion choices.”

Her smile wavered. She’d caught it as a deflection. It could have been, he supposed.

“Not by design. I guess I...mostly left our birth mother to Leia in a way. She could have her to...soften the blow, maybe. Not that it helped. For a long time, she was scared of what she’d find. If it would make things...worse.”

“You weren't moved to keep looking?” Mara stopped walking. “After the Fallanasi nonsense?”

Luke tilted his head. Something in the way she held herself made him want to ask her why this was important now, but that was secondary. The question stood between them, sharp, and he knew he hadn’t answered it well enough yet.

He thought back. They’d talked about this, sure, just not quite in this way. Why turn towards his father... “It might have had to do with my uncle...I thought I wasn’t like him. I loved him, but I wasn’t like him and I...couldn’t be. He was satisfied with life at home, happy, with me, my aunt, with the farm. I could never be like that. So I looked to my father -- he was everything my uncle was not.”

Mara seemed to sense his direction. “And your aunt?”

To put it to words took him a long time, the scratchy fabric of her clothing, the sweet scent of pallies with a tiny note of boontaspice, her gentle, calloused hand on his hair, his cheek, the tone of her voice when she called him in, or when she’d sung him to sleep. All of it had a startling vividness even now. He could never conceive of her gone, far away maybe, but never gone.

It could have been the dream bringing forth old memories...and the dull ache of missing her, the many things left unsaid. Not just to her, but his uncle too. Gulfs left unbridged. It could be regret if he let it, but he always strove for gratitude instead.

Mara’s hand was on his forearm stroking lightly. 

Luke smiled at her and pulled her close, the press of her at his side a puzzle piece in the right place. “She was home.” 

\--

By early afternoon the market had come to even more chaotic life, the street growing packed with women who had arrived from the fields and townspeople who came for the revelry. While only one group of musicians had been playing when they’d first arrived, there were several when they’d left the eatery where they’d stopped for lunch. A group of men and a few women beginning to set up a stage, off at a central area. The previous chatter had increased to a raucous torrent of calls and cries above the rush of multiple conversations. It was refreshing to step away into quieter streets, gradually leaving the center of the town behind.

The day was clear and breezy, wispy clouds streaking across the blue of the sky, easier to take in outside the tumult of the market, but Mara was still given to walking briskly. Luke didn't doubt she had a clear picture in her head of the area around them. They strode past the cluster of the squat buildings that made up the town, away from the gates, following a path towards the forest of tall thin trees that bordered the town's limits to the east, the rancor land. 

Usually land set aside for rancors was kept by the local rancor trainer who dealt directly with the herd-mother of the local rancors’ clan. That witches preferred travel by rancors almost exclusively to any other form, except perhaps walking, meant that rancor clans were used to taking in visitors of their kind when their witches came from distant villages. Understandings were in place between various local inn keepers and the town or clan rancor trainer, who dealt with the rancor herd-mother. 

Dealing with rancors seemed to be within Mara-deemed acceptable levels of annoyance. The times when they’d come to Dathomir before she’d been content to ride with whatever rancor was offered to them, waving off the witches’ suggestion she create a bond with her mount. She’d thought it a bit silly for the relatively short time they spent here during her trips.

But during _this_ trip, Mara had followed the witches’ rancor bonding ritual to a T.

“What are you smiling about?” Mara was looking at him oddly. She'd slowed down a little now that they were out of the town.

“Nothing.” Luke added after a moment, “Just you and the rancors. It would have been okay if you wanted to come check on Osha alone.”

She flashed him another odd look. “Why would you think I wanted to?”

He shrugged. “Maybe it's a witch-rancor thing.”

Mara laughed and bumped him lightly with her shoulder. “I’m not a witch.”

Luke snaked an arm around her waist. “ _Sorceress_.”

She rolled her eyes at him.

“But that expression on your face when Kirana Ti told you to give them jewelry.” He might have been a little surprised himself. Peace had made rancors rather eccentric. 

“It’s a good will gift,” she corrected with a lift of her chin, but there was a little dismay under the words.

“Where’d you get that bracelet anyway?”

She waved a hand. “Some gift a while back from one of Karrde’s associates.” She met his befuddled look with something close to a smirk. “It really wasn’t my style.”

That was true. It was encrusted with so many jewels so as to seem almost vulgar. Rancors weren’t known for their restraint, so that was probably a draw.

“How many offered?”

“Three. Osha was the oldest and he guessed right how far along I was.”

“You gave them a test?” Luke chuckled.

“They all claimed to have experience with pregnant riders. I wanted to see how much -- I wasn’t just going to take the first offer and set up a bond with just any rancor.”

He shook his head at her with a grin. This was his wife.

They had arrived at the trees. “I think this is it. Oh.” They both felt someone approach, taking form just a few seconds after. It was a teen boy no older than fifteen, probably the rancor trainer’s son. 

“This is Sook’s forest,” he called. “All hunting here must pay tribute to her.” 

“We know,” Mara answered. “But we’re not here to hunt. Osha brought us here yesterday. We just want to see how he is.”

“Ah,” the boy’s face lit up with recognition. “Go on.”

As they continued walking in further into the forest, Luke felt Mara call gently through the Force.

There were booming steps, a rancor certainly, but not Osha. A female. The rancor’s massive body took shape from between the trees at a distance. She stared at them for a moment, then continued on her path.

“He might be hunting,” Mara said, going over to sit on a fallen log nearby. “I never have that good a read for these kinds of things.”

Luke took the spot next to her. “When are we supposed to be back?”

“We have time. It starts at sunset.” She pursed her lips at his look. “One more word about sorceresses, so help me--”

Both of them felt the ripple in the Force. Osha’s answer. It wasn’t long before he appeared. Shorter than the female rancor they’d seen he nonetheless towered well over four meters. Mara slid off her log and approached. Luke trailed behind her sending off his own greeting, receiving a nod from the rancor in acknowledgement.

Mara patted the creature's flank, the movement awkward on her, even as Osha leaned into it. Luke felt her ask if he’d rested, if he was comfortable among Sook’s herd.

Osha made a huffing sound and a rumble, indicating he was well and that she shouldn’t trouble herself. In a twist that had Luke covering his face lest Mara see his smile, Osha chided her for seeking him out over using the time to feed herself and the child, offering her some of what he’d hunted. He could even tear it to smaller pieces and help transport it to the town limits for her if she so wished.

The last was too much, and Luke chuckled getting a glare from Mara, who patting the creature with more fondness, communicated she had no need for that. Rather, she urged him to rest well and enjoy his time with Sook’s herd so he might be healthy and in a good disposition for their travel to Green Mountain. In the next exchanges Mara went over the upcoming trip to the Sacred Paths, Osha confessing it had been some time for him, but confident he could keep up with the other rancors.

Mara returned his confidence, and with one last pat, stepped away and said her goodbyes Luke adding his own feeling of gratitude to hers. The rancor snuffed and with a bob of his head, turned, and dashed back into the forest.

Mara looked after him with a melancholy expression that Luke saw no reason for. He touched her elbow lightly. 

“Did I do that right?” she muttered. It had the vague ring of one of those questions she didn’t want a straight answer to, so he held his tongue. 

Her expression cleared and the corners of her mouth tilted up. She looked away. As if summoning will, she blurted out, “Jacen would have an easy time of it, wouldn’t he?”

Luke scanned the area of forest where Osha had gone. Her exchange with Osha had been fine. He wasn't sure why she felt so weighed down. “That’s his gift. If it breathes he can make friends with it.”

Mara nodded. “Unexpected.”

“What do you mean?” he asked as they began their trek back.

“You could anticipate Jaina’s gift. You have a knack for piloting. So did your father, but that kind of ...ease with all lifeforms. _Could_ you have anticipated it?”

He shook his head with some humor. “I couldn’t anticipate any of it. No one can.”

Mara sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” He risked a dive between the lines. “But I don’t think Leia had an easier time with Jaina’s gift than Jacen’s, regardless of whether she could have predicted it or not.” He paused, getting a glimpse of what could be nagging at her. “And then there was Anakin.”

But Mara’s gaze had grown hazy, her sense equally so. “And then there was Anakin.”

Luke reached for her hand and they walked in silence a few moments their hike quiet save for the cries of birds as they crossed over to the path that would lead back to the gates and into the town. “Was it what you mentioned at the inn?” he asked gently. “What if he isn’t like us?”

Something flickered in her sense. “I asked what if he doesn’t _want_ to be like us.”

“Then he won’t be.” He met her eyes. “There’s no one way to be.”

She closed her eyes, silent for a long moment. The town loomed in front of them, smoke from hearths and faint music through the air.

There was still something heavy in her sense, doubt? Luke squeezed her hand. He had always been terrible at leaving things alone. He’d felt it too during her illness, that powerlessness at being held at arm's length knowing she was hurting. The only way he stopped the impulse was to channel his frustrations into some other obligation or another. She’d known that, of course. His wife’s penchant for strategizing could surprise him even after all this time. She'd wanted that distance, but if the worst had happened--

He clamped down on the thought.

“ _We_ can’t be anything but what we are, Luke,” Mara murmured. They were close to the town, could see the path that would lead them in.

“The way that your uncle couldn’t be anything but what he was, as much as he loved you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and she turned to face him, a haunted look in her eyes. “Could that ever be enough? It has to be, doesn’t it?”

The breath caught in his throat. It was a reminder that even bonded as they were, even having shared their lives for the better part of a decade, they were different people. There were certain things they could never completely know about one another. Certain things about one another they had to take on faith.

Luke stopped. He loved Anakin Skywalker for the dream, for the hope of what he could be and the strength he’d shown in the end. He was grateful for that, grateful enough to have forgiven the tragedy of him. 

But he loved Owen Lars for the patient way he'd sat with him servomotors and wires around and said, “Oh that's fine, just try it again with this one,” when Luke fried yet another circuit, for the toil and grit, his big hand on his shoulder after a hard day’s work.

He loved his uncle for who he himself _was_ , just Luke, the reality, what he’d once thought as simple and still did, but no longer with any self consciousness. What Mara had seen was just one memory of so many. His link to his uncle could hardly be boiled down to that single moment. 

And _was_ he really as different from his uncle as he’d once thought at the root of it all? Hadn’t it all been a matter of circumstance? In a few short years he’d be his uncle’s age when he’d lost him. If he could pass down just one grain of his uncle’s capacity to endure without complaint, his ever present willingness to drop everything and help -- both those he loved and those in need -- it would be a gift beyond measure. Everything else paled next to that.

Luke met Mara’s eyes, heartsick again that she didn't know. But then again, _he_ hadn't known then either.

Even when it'd felt stifling that kind of love had given him so much.

He only hoped _they'd_ known. They had to have known.

Luke pulled Mara into his embrace, his voice thick in his ears as he murmured, “Of course it’s enough.”


	3. Chapter 3

The place where the first rites would be held was at the outskirts of the town, north of Sook’s Forest, near the river, but within the limits of the city wall. They barely had time to get to the ‘freshers, dress before they had to make it out again. 

Luke hadn't been entirely joking when he'd told Mara he’d have preferred to stay in, but the ritual was why they were here, so he briskly went about getting ready, until there was just one last thing. He sat down on the edge of the pallet, and slid on the upper arm band, a simple gold ring, registering Mara's frown at his peripheral vision. Whatever Dathomiri might think, he didn't see it any differently from his wedding ring, but that reaction was why he generally opted against it. Right now though, Luke figured they were probably going to stand out enough without adding to it. Mara didn't comment, which he took as grudging agreement. 

Before long they were threading through the winding streets towards a small sandstone dwelling at the top of a small hill overlooking the few crop fields lining the town walls. The sun perched a few hands over the horizon, glowing an orange pink over the greenery below.

Mara called out a greeting, accompanying it with the Force as she knocked. A welcoming sense spread through the place and she pushed at the door, walking in. 

A man came to greet them, his face a mass of wrinkles, but his smile was inviting. He didn't have an arm band, which made it difficult to speculate on his relationship to the seer -- he could be anything from a hired servant, to a rare free man to a family relation taken in for a number of reasons.

“Mother Vila is out in the back,” he said and led them across the reception area and into a back porch that opened to a circular dirt clearing. It was clearly man-made, the rest of the yard was a grassy square with a few trees along the side. Vila sat at the center on her knees, eyes closed, loose gray hair fluttering lightly in the breeze.

Facing Vila to her lower right was a woman looking to be around her mid-twenties sitting in the same manner. The most striking feature about her was her half shaved head, a slender braid of her jet black hair along its middle, the rest of her hair loose, a gold chain extending from her nose to her ear. Her belly was prominent against her dark blue sleeveless tunic was of lizard hide, much more fitted than Mara's olive tunic. She didn't look further along than Mara, though of course, it'd be impossible to know from sight alone. While she wore dripping gold bracelets on both wrists, Luke took note of the absence of a wrist strap, a little strange here considering her age.

That didn't necessarily mean anything. The wrist straps were a relatively new adoption; it was possible clans out in the far west hadn't adopted it, or had different customs regarding awakening rites. Thinking to the conversation he'd overheard in the morning, it was also possible she was simply to undergo them very soon. 

Two men sat, cross-legged, at either side of her, both with densely decorated arm bands in a snake design, the more glittering gemstones used for the eyes. Obviously, these men were her husbands. The one to her left seemed several years older, possibly in his thirties, broad of shoulders with close cropped hair and deep set eyes.

The other was much younger -- certainly younger than the witch herself -- maybe barely into his twenties with an unruly mass of wavy chestnut hair. It could have been just the hair giving that impression. The men's dark brown tunics weren't that much different from Luke's gray one.

Luke followed as Mara took a spot adjacent from Vila, maybe six paces away from the younger husband on the opposite side of the dirt clearing. Vila’s hands were clasped in her lap, fingers interlinked -- what he’d gathered was a basic meditation pose for witches, though they wouldn’t call it that. Luke took up a cross-legged sitting position to Mara’s left while she folded her knees under her, like the two other witches.

Luke's eyes flitted over the witch beside the younger man. For all the talk he'd heard during this trip, he actually didn’t know much about traditional witches, and even less about witches from the distant west. Traditionalists were a minority at Singing Mountain. As far as he recalled, only two sat in the Singing Mountain Witches’ Council, and their lands were at the outskirts of the valley relatively isolated. From what he’d heard from Kirana Ti and Mara, they tended on the whole to be rather punctilious, especially where men’s status was concerned. Obviously, they'd wanted nothing to do with Jedi.

Vila let a few minutes pass and then she opened her eyes.

“Greetings, Jai sister Mara by way of the Singing Mountain clan. Greetings Sister Vesha from the Western Flatirons clan.”

“Greetings Mother Vila, may your hearth be warm,” Mara replied formally.

“Greetings Mother Vila, may your gardens be fruitful,” the other witch joined in.

“You have come for the Rite of the Stones.”

Both women nodded.

“And you brought what you will need?”

Again they nodded.

“Why the stone?”

Both Mara and Vesha were silent. Luke imagined they were both mulling over what a suitable response would be.

“The _Book of Law_ states a mother be solid as the rockhead,” Vesha replied.

Vila made an acknowledging sound. “Is it strength you seek?”

Vesha stayed quiet.

“And you Jai sister? Why stone?”

Luke was certain Mara was thinking back through all the documents she’d gone over on their trip here on the _Shadow_. He frowned at the memory. It'd been her reading material between trips to the ‘fresher.

“The _Book of Law_ says the stone is the cradle of the earth,” she said quietly.

“Do you seek its capacity to hold then?”

Mara didn’t answer either. 

“Tell your mates to ready the ink,” Vila gestured to the women. “This part is for a witch alone.”

Mara grabbed the bag and pulled out the instick and the inkstone out as Luke watched. Beside them several paces away, one of the men, the older one, did the same in the other group while the younger withdrew a water gourd from the back of their bag. Luke’s eyes drifted uneasily towards Vila as he took the bag from Mara to withdraw their water canteen out -- perhaps he’d been meant to do it all, but Vila wasn’t staring at him and he could sense no reproach.

As Mara stood up to join Vila and Vesha at the corner of the clearing-- the grassy area, Luke thought back to the market. When they'd purchased the items, the seller had mentioned an old, rather uncommon tradition of painting a symbol on the arm to mark the child’s birth on the mother’s body. The seller had assumed that was the use they’d give the inkstone and inkstick, given Mara's pregnancy, which he'd managed to pick out the fastest of anyone they'd met here thus far.

Luke poured a few drops of water on the inkstone, a sloping stone mortar with a concave well at the end. More than anything, it continued to be disappointing to see half of Dathomir's population close to barred from their talents. Progress at times seemed painfully slow.

Luke picked up the inkstick, copying the way the older man was grinding it against the inkstone, watching the water gradually turn into a deeper black and gather in the well portion of the mortar. The younger man a few feet beside him was looking raptly over to where the women were.

From this distance Luke couldn't hear anything other than Vila’s contralto as she began to hum, then raised her voice to intone the first verse with Vesha and Mara singing back the second verse. It was in archaic Dathomiri as most spells were, he could tell now; Luke didn’t understand it, even if it sounded somewhat familiar. This was a simple song, but like all spells, it functioned as a type of focusing tool to tap into the Force, and true to the fact, the Force gathered around the women. Now, he could pick out that it wasn't a spell per se. It was a chant, these had a more inward orientation -- a witch could chant to cast a spell, but she could chant for itself as a form meditation. The difference was subtle enough that it'd taken him a while to catch.

Vila raised her hands, arms bent at the elbows, palms facing up, Vesha and Mara copying the gesture as they intoned the response. When she'd began her study under Kirana Ti, Mara had admitted not to be a fan of the performative aspect of Dathomiri Force use.

“Never had much of a singing voice,” she’d quipped.

Truthfully, Luke never noticed the singing at all after the first few words, the swirl of the Force through them being far more arresting. 

Vila brought her hands in front of her, cupping them, a gesture Mara and the other witch followed.

He’d been curious when Mara had first started learning, just out of her Trials, but he hadn’t wanted to offend Kirana Ti or to step on his wife’s toes by asking -- she was doing this for him, after all. He'd mostly kept his questions to himself.

Vila brought a hand to the center of her chest. 

It was in one of their later trips to Dathomir, maybe after the Witches’ Council approved their plans for an academy that Mara offered to teach him. He’d thought about it, but something didn’t feel right. For him it would be a mere curiosity and more than a bit disrespectful to their customs, especially given how generous the Council and Mother Augwynne had been towards Mara. In the end, he was content for Mara to keep this for herself. Pouring his gratitude and affection to the bond, he’d given her a lopsided smile.

“My singing voice is not that great,” he’d said.

\--

As Luke turned his attention back to work with the inkstone, the younger man beside him made a quiet chiding sound and Luke glanced at him, realizing at some point the older man had passed him the inkstick and inkstone.

“You wield the inkstick clumsily,” the young man chided. 

Luke stopped. It hadn't been the hair at all, giving the impression of boyishness. He seemed only a little older than Jacen, the shadow of some childish roundness still on his face.

“You have not done this before.”

“No, I haven’t.” Luke looked down at the inkstick in his hand. In the time of the Old Republic there’d been renown Jedi calligraphers, but that, too, had been lost. “What am I doing wrong?”

The boy slowed his movements. “Press down with pressure and around, _gently_. The ink should foam a bit, not froth.”

Luke copied him. “Do you know what symbol they will be painting?”

He passed him an odd look. “Nothing. A woman never does it. Men do it. Your wife has never done the Winterfest rites?”

Actually, no. Luke didn't think any of their visits had overlapped with that particular festival. “Oh, okay. So then what will we be painting on them?”

He shrugged. “Now? I do not know.”

They worked in silence for a few moments, until the young man's eye wandered over to Luke again. “This is your first child?” Luke nodded, feeling the younger man's curiosity. “It can’t be.” He looked over to Mara. “Did her first mate die?”

At this the older man looked up and scolded, "Eren!"

Luke smiled in his direction. “It's okay." He turned to Eren. "Nothing like that. Mara was ill for a time. She isn’t anymore.” He thought back to the usual phrasing of the question here. “How many moons...?”

Eren shook his head. “More than thirteen cycles, Is your seedling girl or boy?”

Luke found himself hesitating, and when he spoke it came out sharp enough to surprise him. “It doesn’t matter to us.”

“You’re an offworlder,” Eren said as if figuring it out. He tilted his head thoughtfully. “But you’re too short and not beautiful enough to be Hapan.”

The older man looked at Eren again with exasperation. "That loose tongue of yours."

Eren gave a shrug. "It is all true."

The older man sent a contrite look Luke's way. "Ignore him. He is young and still unwise."

"Not that unwise." Luke told them. “Offworlder, yes. Hapan, no.”

Eren smirked triumphantly. "You see, Aytell." He turned to Luke. "I told them the Jai witch was not Hapan."

Aytell looked as if he were to say something but simply thinned his lips.

Luke went back to his ink.

“Vesha’s child will be a girl," Eren blurted out, jutting his chin towards the women. “And very powerful.”

Luke raised his eyes to him over the inkstick. “Congratulations. I’m sure she will be.”

“It is said offworlders can use machines to see the child? Have you?” 

Luke nodded, thoughts turning to Cilghal’s last scan, the baby shimmery and blue between them, magnified, but those tiny fingers... 

Eren wrinkled his nose. “Unnatural. I am Vesha's first husband. Aytell here is her second.”

“Iltar,” Luke replied, wondering about what the ranks meant for women with more than one husband. "First husband?" 

The boy nodded, squaring his shoulders a little. "Vesha's girl has my gift. Her line is full of powerful land witches like she is. The Shrike's Pass will belong to her one day."

Luke was still caught up in the first statement, realizing he'd assumed the child was the other man's and found himself looking his way. Aytell was staring off towards the women, sense serene. Luke went back to pressing the inkstick. This was just how things were done in some parts.

Eren cocked his head. “Your wife is a Jai teacher, Vesha overheard.”

Luke stopped pressing the inkstick. “She is.”

“She teaches Jai men? At Singing Mountain?”

“She’s not currently teaching,” Luke started, brightening. “But there’s many instructors--”

Eren appeared puzzled. “And she hasn’t taken another Jai mate?”

Aytell made a low noise of reproach and shot him a warning look. "These are offworlders, Eren."

"Yes, but she is a Jai _witch_ ," he hissed. "Eastern women don't take more than one mate anymore because they can't afford it, but _she_ can. Vesha overheard she had a _starship_ \-- " 

"She is _not_ a witch, she is Jai," Aytell interrupted. "Men are not worth the same to them." Before Luke could say anything, he added, "This is his first time outside the clan lands."

“Vesha never takes me." Eren scowled.

"You know it's too dangerous."

"And If she's not a witch, why is she here?" Eren continued quickly. "Men--"

“Mara is...not a traditionalist,” Luke intervened, deciding to leave the matter of the awakening rites alone. 

Eren looked at him at a loss. His gaze slid over to Aytell who shook his head.

"She is not a witch," he repeated. “There is no such thing as a Jai witch.”

Before Luke could respond, Vesha and Mara were making their way over, Vila behind them. Eren shifted away from Luke and went back to his ink.

\--

A few minutes later after the women had taken back their original spots, Vila took a stave about as long as her forearm and stabbed it into the dirt in front of her, the movement drawing all the eyes. 

“What is.” She drew a line, then lifted her stave and stabbed it down into another point. “What was." She went back to the initial point and drew another line, forming the two sides of an upside down equilateral triangle. “What will be.” She stabbed down the last point and closed the triangle.

“The Rite of the Stones begins with the inkstone as prelude.” She gestured to the two inkstones. “A refined river stone. It makes the ink.” She gestured to the well portion, the incline where the ink pooled. “It holds it so that one can paint a pattern. The patterns of the _Book of Law_ , in a mother's spellbook...” The words again had the quality of a riddle. “We have," she reached to clasp her opposite shoulder, "the first pattern of all: who made you? Who held you?"

A bubbling of pain sudden and deep wrested his attention to Mara, his hand at her arm. "That's where they ink the clan name during Winterfest," he heard her murmur. "Your point of origin."

"And that is what we mark first," Vila was saying, "before traversing onto the main rite.”

“Just caught me by surprise,” she whispered. Through the bond he could pinpoint the moment, that gaping absence. 

Luke raised his head, aware of Vila’s eyes on them. 

“What is it?” Vila asked Mara.

He almost cringed.

“And what if there is no pattern?” Mara asked flatly, but he felt that old ache trickling out of her. “No one that made you.”

“And no one held you?”

“Ghosts.”

Vila betrayed no emotion as she traced the triangle. “Tell me, Jai, what is this sigil used for usually?” She drew a circle around the triangle in the dirt.

Mara paused. “Time. The beginning, the middle, and end of a song. The strongest voice and clearest chanting to the central portion.”

Vila smiled. “Yes. Were you told what the missteps are?”

Mara nodded. “Raise one’s voice too early or too late. A spell is effective when it has harmony, a balance of breath and tone through time.”

“Good. And you must know that our lives are the song.” Vila sang a couple of verses. “Complete the spell, Jai.” She sang the same verses again.

Mara’s face cleared with the challenge. Praxis really was her forte. “May I listen again?”

Luke felt as Mara opened herself up to the Force. She followed as the witch sang the same verses a third time.

Once she fell silent, Mara repeated them under her breath, once, twice, attuning herself to Vila’s demeanor, her mental state through the Force. From across the clearing, Vesha watched silently, her eyes on the strap around Mara’s wrist. 

A few minutes later, Mara added one verse, but it didn’t quite fit. The Force flickered like a spark that couldn't catch. This went on for a couple more minutes, until finally she tested it again out softly, and Luke felt the Force thread clearly through her words. Mara lifted her voice for the full set of verses, beginning to end, pulling on the Force with more concentration. A breeze spread through their clearing.

Vila’s smile was wide. “You have passed the awakening rites indeed, Jai.”

Past the seer, Vesha’s eyes had narrowed, expression tightening.

Mara frowned. “I don’t think this fits, Mother. This song is not the song you started with.”

Vila’s eyebrows raised. “But it was a harmonious song, an effective spell.”

“I made it based on what I thought fit. One’s past isn’t that way. It’s always there or not, as the case may be.”

“The now is where all things meet.” Vila dug her stave into the original point on the etched triangle in the dirt.

Mara pursed her lips. “How we look at what was and what will be depends on what is-- I understand that, but you can’t... _create_ what was.” She spread her palm, voice even. She’d reduced it to an intellectual question. “I can’t make up my clan, my mother’s name, my pattern to follow.”

Vila simply traced the circle around the triangle. “Why should you need to _create_ a pattern at all? We merely have it. The land gives it to us.”

Mara stayed quiet. The witch broke the silence, by singing the same partial verses as before.

“You say the stone is the cradle of the earth," Vila said after. "So I ask you, what do you seek of the stone, Jai?”

Mara shut her eyes, grudgingly she said, “Its capacity to hold.”

“Why?”

A beat. A burst of emotion. Luke shifted his hand next to hers and she slid hers atop it.

Vila sang a spell, the same one as before and the dirt by the stave gathered, forming into an inverted pyramid, then rose up in the air. It was startling different from the wind spell Mara had sung.

“The song is everchanging, but it is always the same song. The patterns that make it, too. The rising and setting sun, the blooming and withering of flowers.” She hummed and a ring of reddish dirt circled the pyramid. “It is harmony above all that makes the song, makes a spell effective, no matter from where it hails.”

With a sweeping gesture and another hum, the pyramid disintegrated into a small cloud of dirt. 

“The song is everchanging, but it always the same song,” Vila repeated, meeting Mara’s eyes solemnly. "Refine your intent, and you will find what you seek."

Luke sensed Mara grab onto that, searching for the connection. A few paces away Vesha was in conversation with her two mates, divvying up the painting tasks. It'd be easy to take for granted one's origins, Luke couldn't help thinking. He recalled Mara's wistfulness earlier.

Finally he felt Mara settle on something. “Harmonious...with what is,” he overheard her mutter.

Like the spell, Luke supposed.

But she stared at the inkstone with a far off gaze. “How careless of me,” she said half to herself in a tone Luke had never liked. “I didn’t realize they’d ask this. I should have known. Of course a lineage would be important to them...as a starting point. I forgot how things go here.”

He didn't think so, and slid his hand out from under hers to rub her arm. “No one would ever know you haven't cast a spell in more than a year.”

Mara graced him with a faint smile at his attempt to lift her spirits. It vanished quickly. “Patterns to follow.” She made a small frustrated noise. 

He and Mara had tried to look for records of Mara’s parentage shortly after their marriage with no success. Even their meditation through the Force hadn’t yielded anything Mara hadn’t felt before.

“Has to be matrilineal, right,” he noted, seeing if that could jog something else.

“If I had a female mentor... Kirana Ti taught me the Arts, but that doesn’t feel right. It has to do with mothering...the same song...” Her voice trailed off. He sensed her wracking her mind. Her gaze perched on him. 

“What?”

That small smile was back. “My head’s filled with you.”

“What do you mean?”

She bit her lip. “Your aunt. Her name might work.”

His eyes widened. The dream. While Mara didn’t know the content enough sense impressions had probably leaked over.

"I want it to work," she murmured. "It's the closest thing."

Luke lifted his arm to her back, the admission more than a bit rending. She'd seemed so unsettled by his uncle that he hadn't given a lot of thought to her reaction to the rest. His aunt.

"I have vague memories..." She sighed. "It's all...tainted."

Very cautiously, he ventured, “Would my aunt's name be all right with kin lines?”

“Technically.” Her gaze focused again. “You and your aunt Beru weren’t related by blood, and your birth mother’s name passes to you by Dathomiri rules, even if she didn't raise you. A biological mother always has claim through blood.” She hesitated. “By Dathomiri customs, your aunt is invisible.”

Mara’s sense shifted from her logical consideration into a gentle touch through the bond, but there was a faint thrum of self consciousness. 

Luke clasped the touch, moved. He knew the crush of his own history...intimately. He'd never wanted to overwhelm her with it, tried as best he could to give her space from it. He'd looked forward to seeing the new lightsaber she'd made just before her Trials for that reason -- more assurance that even in this she was charting her own path. 

And yet, her old lightsaber still rode at her belt afterwards, the new one whisked into a decorated box at their quarters where others couldn't see the different shading of its blue kyber, or the silvery songsteel of its lightweight hilt, or the way her sequences with it were _exquisite_ in form and speed. It'd seemed unlike her not to put it to use, and Mara _was_ proud of it, he'd felt that. When he'd asked though, she'd given a little shrug, patted her lightsaber, and said, "I'm more used to the weight of this one." 

Luke couldn't but see some of that here as Mara pushed the loose strands of her hair back, a fluttery gesture that made something in him wrench. Mara never backed down from a challenge, that, he knew, but there was something to the way she claimed them, kept them as part of her. 

“It’s just an idea and she’s your aunt. I never even met her,” she lifted her eyes to meet his, hers grave, “though I would have wanted to." It was her hand reaching over to squeeze his arm now, all of her previous nervousness gone. "I can understand if it’s too strange, and she's your--”

"Anything mine has always been yours." It felt as much a claiming as a tribute. An exchange, in typical Mara fashion. "She’d be touched. She would." There was more that he could say, so much, but not here.

Luke cleared his throat. "I hope it’s alright to write it in Aurebesh.” He gave a furtive glance about.

Vesha seemed to have negotiated whatever she’d needed and had peeled down the top of her tunic. Aytell had shifted behind her and pulled his inkstone towards him. She leaned forward and kissed Eren in a way that made Luke quickly look away. Witches could be demonstrative, but it seemed a bit much, the sudden frisson between them through the Force even more uncomfortable. He couldn't look away from _that_ , and to put up some distance would give him away.

Mara's eyes flitted in their direction. She snorted lightly and went to the ties of her tunic at her neck, clearly not as sensitive to this sort of thing. 

“Lars would be hard to render, even if I knew their sigils," she continued, drawing him back into conversation. "It’s phonetic right?” 

“That’s my guess. I’ve never looked into it, but that wasn’t my aunt’s name. That was my uncle’s. And actually it wouldn't be hard to render into sigils at all if we knew them.”

“Ah.” Mara nodded, pulling the top of her tunic down. “What was it again?”

He grinned as he scooted behind her.

“You’re annoying,” she said over her shoulder with a grin of her own. “Out with it before I go into labor.”

“White...sun.” Very little caught his wife by surprise; those were moments to be savored. “Whitesun. It's really too bad we don't know their sigils.”

She beamed. “You’re insufferable.”

“Oh, I know that.” 

She chuckled, full of good-natured exasperation. “Why did I marry you?”

He gently dragged the inkstone next to him. “You like how I use a lightsaber.”

“Innuendo while I’m half naked is in bad taste, Skywalker.”

“What? In this setting?" he retorted blandly. "And I _really_ like how you use a lightsaber too.” Mara’s snort was twice as loud and everyone was suddenly looking their way.

“Apologies, Mother,” she said, ducking her head.

But Vila surprised him, her aloof expression melting into something kinder. “He who can lighten a witch's heart is a good mate.”

Mara took the moment to add, “Mother, being offworlders, we are not familiar with the sigils...”

Vila waved a hand. “I told you to change as you see fit, Jai. The script is not as important as the breathed word in any case. It is merely a point of reference, a reminder for the duration of the ritual. It will fade, besides.” 

"Where is it to be written?" She looked over at Aytell busy tracing a sigil on Vesha's back. "Not the arm?"

"No. Along the water avar."

"On and below my shoulder blade," Mara murmured to him.

Luke went back to the inkstone. The problem now solved and Mara’s state back to lightness, he turned his mind to the task. He shifted just a bit closer suddenly caught by the impulse to turn his head and drop his head by her neck, inhale the woodsiness of her scent, clean and bright like morning. Except that he wasn't entirely sure some of it wasn't being affected somewhat by the Vesha and Eren at the other side of the clearing. Disconcerting. This was one of the reasons setting boundaries was among the first lessons given to apprentices at the academy.

"Distracted?" Mara's amusement washed over him.

“A little," he admitted. It was just a matter of adjusting, the best way to go about that was focusing on something else.

"I do have my doubts,” he continued conversationally. “About where exactly the water avar is.” He brought a hand to her lower back, idly traced the rounded square of the 'W' there. “Here, maybe?” He slid his fingers up to the middle of her back and repeated the similar caress there. “Or here?”

Her voice was slightly breathier even as she scolded, “Behave. I just told you.”

Luke lifted a hand to just beside her shoulder blade, and traced the Aurebesh there. He dipped the index finger of his right hand in the ink and began to trace the 'W'. “Now don’t move. I need my focus.”

“You better not misspell it.”

“There’s no need to get sharp.” He started on the three strokes that made up the 'H’.

Mara’s voice took the texture of velvet...with just the slightest suggestion of bite underneath. “Sharp?”

He traced the hooked line that made the ‘I’. “Shhh, I want to get this right.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” He dipped his index finger back into the ink in the inkstone’s well. “If I do get it wrong, it might be a little distracting when I see it again,” he perched his his left hand low on her waist, “later on.” 

Mara didn’t reply, but he saw her shoulders move with her indrawn breath.

He squeezed very lightly, smiling at the quiet gasp. “I don’t think I’m terrible at this at all.” He let go, skidded his fingers to the center of her back, pushing slightly. “Bend forward?”

Her back angled and on second thought, he probed for discomfort. The documents mentioned something about back pain... 

“Your back--”

“Not this early. I’m not carrying _that_ much weight yet," she said, amused. "Let’s see how sharp, I’ll be then.”

“Mm.” Very slowly he started the strokes that made up the character for 'T,' a downward facing arrow, rubbing back and forth along the longer central line.”I’ll look forward to it.”

She laughed huskily. “You’re being inappropriate.” He finished with the 'T' and went on to the 'E.'

“Oh? I don’t see how. I’m following the ritual _to the letter_ , don’t you think?” He dipped his index finger in the ink again.

Mara groaned. “Awful," she said as he traced the 'S'. " You even snuck a bad pun in there. Stop channeling your nephew, Skywalker. It won’t end well for you.”

He grinned and went on to the hooked almost-square of the 'U’. “Stay...very...still. I’m almost done and actually, I think...” he started on the curve of the ‘N’.“It’s going to...end...really,” he stretched the word out as he traced the stroke up, “well...for us.”

Luke inched further back for a better look at the ‘Whitesun’ inked down her back, midnight black Aurebesh on her pale skin.

Patterns. Reminders. His aunt's name. 

And he thought of his aunt with a slugthrower in hand, barking at him to get behind her, and it was more than fitting that Mara bear her name here and now, as if the Force had decided it more than they had. He could see the brilliant flare of Mara’s blade, a tiny face peeking behind her under a mop of unruly red hair.

A universe to hold. To lose. More than everything.

It was terrifying...and wondrous, like looking down from an inconceivable height.

“Well?” Mara looked at him over her shoulder. “You didn’t misspell it, right?”

He chuckled. “No. It’s perfect.” And he thought, I am not afraid. 

She turned around to face him.

Luke smiled. “She was really good with a slugthrower.” 

“They're...temperamental, aren't they?" she said softly. "You have to really know your ballistics.”

He nodded. “She had a knack for it.”

“I didn’t know that. You mostly talk about her giju stew.” 

Luke raised his eyebrows at her. “I saw her cook more than I saw her shoot.”

“Thank goodness for that example.” Mara leaned towards him, eyes shinning. "If you and I _both_ shot more than we cooked, we’d have to raise our kid on mealpacks.”

\--

Once they were done, Vila called an end to this part of the rite and led the witches in a short closing chant. After, she had her husband bring in a simple dinner, a pot of stew and several bowls for all the participants. By habit, witches liked to finish their rituals with simple meals.

The ink was still drying on Mara and Vesha’s backs, and even with his various experiences at diverse corners of the galaxy and the casual atmosphere that had fallen here once the bowls were passed down, every so often he’d find himself wishing Vesha and Mara would pull their tunics back up. Default programming was always irritatingly hard to override. At least the charged air from earlier had eased up.

While Eren and Aytell talked in whispers among themselves, Vesha sipped from her bowl and looked over to Mara with undisguised curiosity, mingled with plenty of suspicion. Luke recalled her hard-eyed stare at the strap around Mara’s wrist and wondered if it was the same issue Aytell had broached -- if they all thought Mara was some sort of an impostor in their midst. This wouldn’t be the first time they’d encountered a witch hostile to Jedi.

”I don’t think she likes us much,” he commented to Mara.

Mara looked up from her bowl. "Surprise, surprise." She put her now-empty bowl down. "I saw you talking to her husbands earlier.”

Luke was about to tell her about them when Vesha called out, “Jai” and pointed to Mara’s back.

“Is that your language?”

Mara gave a shake of her head. “We don’t have one language.”

Vesha went on. “What does it say?”

“Whitesun.”

“Your village?”

Mara made a negative sound at the back of her throat, lips curving. “Nowhere I’ve been.”

Confusion crossed the witch’s face. It was soon replaced with a scowl. 

Vila added, “Where you seek to go?”

“Sure.” Mara lifted her head. “A... path.”

Vesha’s face cleared slightly. “The sun is auspicious for us. White or not. Is a white sun more auspicious for Jai?”

“We don’t have those kinds of symbols.” Mara jutted her chin in Vesha's direction. “What do your sigils read?”

“Western Flatirons.”

“Ah, your clan. The far west, right? This is a long way for you."

Her face tightened. "Our seer passed. No one closer would do the rites,” Vesha said, putting down her bowl, and pushed it away from her. “ I am surprised a Jai would take part in this rite. Jai don’t believe in the ways of Allya.”

“Not strictly true,” Mara pointed out. “Allya was once a Jai.”

”Is that what Jai teach to convince easteners?” she all but growled. She looked over at Vila as if daring her to object, but the seer didn't look up from her bowl.

Mara’s eyebrows raised, her expression surprised. “It’s the truth. The _Book of Law_ says the star people cast her out. That's us. Jai. _Jedi_."

Allya had skirted close to the dark side, the details were never explained in the Old Jedi Order texts they had come across. They only stated that she’d been exiled to this planet in the hopes that the solitude here would help her mend her ways. 

"Your people labeled her as forsaken," Vila pointed out casually, lowering her bowl.

“You follow this practice too, no?" Mara said with a glance towards Vila. "Witches who cast spells in anger are sent for cleansing. They keep being witches, right? Welcomed back to their clans after three years?

"Here," Vesha corrected sharp enough to make the men pause in their conversation. "Where the valleys are kind. Only powerful earth readers would live that long alone where we come from."

Vila looked up at that, staring at Vesha, and slowly nodded. "Yes, the lands to the far west are treacherous to anything but land witches."

Mara looked over at Luke. As far as they knew, that particular specialization had to do with the manipulation of the earth, sand, and stone. A land witch was trained to be sensitive to the terrain, to sense areas that were crossable or not. In addition, a particularly talented witch could create anything from temporary from detailed maps to solid bridges from the material.

"Well," Mara choose to regroup. "That was Allya's wisdom in any case: When the night comes, let the land bring you back to life, according to the _Book of Law_. Darkness is life draining, the land is life giving. Whatever darkness took, the land can give back. Do you believe that in the Western reaches?”

Reluctantly, Vesha nodded.

Vila stirred her stew with a rueful smile. “The world is different from when I was a girl. Back then no one thought they’d ever see one of the star people, much less that they would know the _Book of Law_.”

Vesha expression was far more sour. “Your Jai never shared all that knowledge from your starship.”

Mara shook her head. “Not true either. Come to Singing Mountain and see.”

The young witch’s face twisted. "Others might fall for your empty promises, but we in the west _keep_ Allya's ways."

Mara folded her hands. “If it's teaching men you mean, we believe its unwise to question who nature gave gifts to--”

“Perhaps you should Jai,” Vila interrupted evenly. “You remember what Dathomir was during the time of Allya? The fearsome beasts?”

Mara nodded. “The wild rancors here at one time. Yes.”

“But also wild _men_. Men’s whose nature was so terrible, sins so great the ancients sought fit to abandon them without weapons among the rancors. To die.” She stopped reflective. “And they almost did...nearly all of them.” 

“That was until Allya saw into their hearts, just as she saw into those of the rancors.” Vila leaned back slightly. “She granted them food when they were hungry, water when they were thirsty, a fire to keep warm, and sons to care for them in their twilight. Life. In return, she asked for their service and strong daughters to pass the lore.”

“Mother Vila,” Mara said tightly after a moment. “Men are not rancors.”

“No.” Vila looked at Mara, her gaze sharpening. “We have heard your lore too, Jai. Your fallen star and your long night, whole worlds turned into dust in the skies.”

She made a gesture and the fire sparked up.

“We know they can be much worse.”

\--

Mara had let the matter drop, a wise move, Luke had thought, as she turned the conversation to the types of inkstones made in this region. She was no stranger to ornery witches, and letting the conversation degrade into a back and forth of which darksiders caused the most suffering would help no one. Vesha didn't take part in the ensuing conversation, choosing to stare on with a standoffish expression as Vila discussed the make and various properties of inkstones. 

The sun had already set when they took their leave and headed back to the inn through a quiet path. The occasional rustling of lizards scurrying through the trees and bushes the only sound for a while. 

"She must have frightened him," Mara said once they were a few yards away from the dwelling.

"Who?"

"Allya, whoever she grabbed as mate. But she hardly could have kept being a Jedi, -- or rather kept herself from the dark side, if they didn't come to some...agreement." She stopped. "To coerce someone and keep doing it, to hold them against their will, _forcing_ one's will upon them would taint her. She had to have turned away from the dark side by then. I don't know if witches as we know them would exist otherwise."

They'd both speculated something similar before, but that's all it was. "Her eldest daughter repeated it and she was a teenager when Allya died," Luke mused. "Maybe her father didn't explain it to her well enough." There was no way to know. "Maybe he didn't know how."

He remembered Teneniel, the first witch he'd encountered here, protesting at his reproach of the largely defunct practice of hunting men. What resulted from the practice might not have been love, but there were plenty of bonds that could approximate it in depth. None of them were easy to quantify or even describe. All of this made not just the practice, but the whole system that underpinned it difficult to unseat. Shackles took many forms.

Mara's face shadowed. "Maybe he died too."

Luke nodded and both grew silent. Sixteen felt too young to be left alone, caring for others. So much could be misunderstood at that age -- and yet, witches had stayed away from using the Force for self aggrandizement. This had been encoded into their laws.

“The Pae’sher branch we bought we used for an opening-the-senses chant,” Mara started again, changing the subject. “You were wondering about it at the market. After, Vila had us go through the discovery spell to feel the baby.”

Luke thought back to his conversation with Eren. “I didn’t catch on to how much of a common practice it is to find out what the baby will be through the discovery spell.” He wondered about the young man's attention to the women. Had it been towards Vesha or the chanting?

“I imagine that's also outside the realm of things the Order pondered,” Mara said with a wry grin. 

“Might have a point there.” 

Little by little the vegetation grew less. The stone dwellings of the town were lit from within, most by firelight but a few by lighting fixtures. Their glow was still dim and diffuse enough that plenty of stars could be seen overhead. 

“The discovery spell does seem like a more organized way of sensing Force sensitives though,” he told her. “At least it’s seemed that way to me. For humans in this setting, anyway.” 

The way he picked out beings through the Force gave the practicer chaotic impressions. You could tell the being sensed had a Force gift and perhaps the extent, but more concentration was needed to discern the contours outside the mind: male or female, young or old -- these things were more porous than would seem at first glance. In this he'd had the impression that the witches' discovery spell was more effective. A large part of that was most likely due to its use in a more homogeneous setting than the ones in which Jedi moved.

A couple of teen girls in apprentice robes walked past them, conversing animatedly with each other. They nodded at Mara who nodded back, even if an odd expression crossed their faces. They probably realized belatedly they weren’t speaking in their language.

Mara continued, “Yes, easier that way. I did try it with Madurrin once and it worked, but I don’t know if it was because I know her. Might have been.” 

Luke made an acknowledging noise, mildly amused at how Madurrin, an Anx, might have reacted at seeing Mara sing her spell.

He grinned. “How'd she react?”

“She was mostly confused. Ma-ra, why are you singing?”

Luke chuckled.

“I do wonder sometimes,” he ventured after a few beats. “If it’s okay. All we know about Dathomiri and how they approach the Force.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Your telling me about the chants, the spells they have you do,” he shook his head, “It’s taboo isn’t it?”

Mara snorted. “We were in the same room. You could figure it out.”

It still felt uncomfortable.

Her head turned in his direction. She was scowling, but not at him. “They know what I am, I never hid it. If they wanted to bar me from their teachings they could have.”

“ _Do_ they know? They don’t know about me.”

Mara stopped walking. “Vila said I could take what I could from it. So I am. This is part of it.” She tilted her head. “Is that what’s been bothering you about this?”

He passed a hand over her arm. She met his eyes, her own dark in the dim light.

“The rite is necessarily focused on the witch. Her body -- my body -- is the ground for it.” She brought the hand to her shoulder, just below it on her back, under her sleeveless tunic was the lettering ‘Whitesun’. “Mine.” 

Her body was the ground the disease had tried to take from her, too, and another thought surfaced with that. He went with it, blurting out, “Is that what the baby means to you?”

Mara blinked, caught off guard at the abruptness, but considered it. She idly looped her arms around his waist, drawing close. 

“How irritating would it be if I bounced that question back to you?”

He drifted a palm to her back. “You can, you know.”

“Is _that_ what the baby means to _you_?”

Luke thought for a moment. Did he take the child as a sign that Mara had beat her ailment, much like with any opponent? _Proof_ of it? Was that the extent of his attachment at this point in time, when their son had no name, when the his presence was almost inextricable from Mara’s own? 

He shook his head, finding the notion off-putting for some reason. “No.”

Mara looked up at him. She smiled, expression changing to pensiveness after a moment. “It may have been that before. For me. To think the disease took away the possibility of having children -- for a while I wanted to have them because of that. Because I couldn’t.”

He remembered her broaching it. At the time it’d been difficult to consider over the heartbreak of Mara's worsening condition, the gathering fear and her distance for his sake, knowing that made it hurt even more. Luke focused on her skin's warmth through the thin fabric of her tunic.

“I thought about wanting to leave some part of myself behind, too.” She lowered her voice. “Out of defiance, I guess.” 

It hurt to even imagine, the sting of it like a wound, still tender, just barely closed. He stroked his fingers up over the bump of her shoulder blade. “And now?” 

“Not that. I’m--I'm still figuring it out." Her voice was steadier when she asked, "Any insight on your end?”

“No,” he whispered. 

Mara shifted in his arms, again looking up at him. He could smell the mint of the Pae’she leaves on her hair. “Reason enough to keep at this, no?”

“I wasn’t saying we withdraw.” Luke let her slide away and pull him along. “This is important to you. To us.” They took into the the paths between the dwellings, the smell of leather and roasted meat wafting through the air.

“And I obviously want to know...I always do. Just...if this belongs to them. I...I wouldn’t want to step on any toes,” Luke finished off with a sigh. “You know what I mean.”

Before them, people wove in and out of dwellings, calling out greetings, some clustering in front of houses in chitchat. 

And Mara tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and looked back at him, “There’s no one’s toes to step on." A bewitching smile settled on her lips. "We’re the only ones here.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being a monster chapter, so it's getting cut into two. The second will be posted once I finish the edits on it. Probably later today or tomorrow.

The summons for breakfast came again through the door, breaking through Luke’s sleep, making him aware of the haziness of being here and also _there_ , his arm over the sheets, except that not being his arm but _her_ arm, as he grasped the usual disorientation after a night like the previous. He lingered a while in this state, Mara’s own consciousness in a deeper sleep. His bodily awareness of Mara felt a little different, tight along her middle -- _him_ , it came to Luke dreamily, their son. Our baby, he thought. From this close, their son's life presence was entirely distinguishable from Mara’s and he wanted to reach out to him, but stopped. 

It did feel like he should be up so Luke cracked his eyes open, extracting himself gently from the bond's porous borders. Sunlight was bright and plentiful around the room.

Too plentiful. He untangled himself from Mara, a surprising number of muscles protesting. The room was a mess of scattered clothing and he groped around for his chrono. It was mid-morning, atrociously late by their standards. Mara, despite being a light sleeper, had not so much as moved as he slid off the pallet.

Luke chuckled quietly, and would feel more pleased with himself if he didn’t feel like he’d spent the night running through a swamp at full speed. Apparently, _everyone_ had been correct about the hormone switchover in the second trimester. The rites for the day were to begin early afternoon, so at least they hadn’t missed anything. She was on her way to missing breakfast the way she was sleeping, though. He should probably bring up a plate.

Luke dressed quickly, going downstairs and out the building to the ‘freshers. Tenos met him on his way back with that vile oil and a glass of ila juice.

“Late night,” he commented. 

Luke grunted out what he hoped was a noncommittal response and the end of the matter as he downed the oil, and the juice after. He gestured upstairs. “I was wondering if I could--”

“Of course.” Tenos waved him along towards the kitchen. “I take it the first part of the rite went well?" He didn't wait for Luke to respond before continuing. "My mother did them when I was in her womb."

Luke tilted his head. "Really?"

"The beetle pox had fallen on more than half of the rancor herd she trained." They went through the doorway leading to the room where Luke had breakfast the day before with the rest of the men. "Many suffered greatly and had to be put down.”

Luke's eyes widened, knowing how close witches could be to their mounts. "I had the impression not many witches do the rites."

"Not nowadays." Tenos searched until he found a basket. "A witch is no longer expected to swallow her sorrows." He stopped for a moment. "My father claimed not to have known how much losing the rancors had lodged in her heart until she did the rites." He raised his head. "Alva sends her apologies for not being able to see you off. Right now she’s a few hours away meeting with Essar -- my son's -- match at Frenzied River.”

"I hope it's going well.”

Tenos beamed placing the basket on the table and slipping two mugs inside. “We received favorable news this morning. The match will go through.”

Luke smiled at him. “Happy news.”

“Healer family,” he added.

“And your son,” Luke asked hesitantly, grabbing some of the bread laid out. “He is happy with the choice?”

Tenos paused, gesturing for Luke to choose what he wanted from the food spread on a nearby low table. “He has met her, but he'd hoped for a witch closer to his age like all boys... ” He shook his head.

“She’s older?”

“Younger. Sixteen seasons.”

Luke nodded, recalling Eren. He reached for a bowl of fruit and slid it inside the basket. “My sister’s children are around that age.”

Tenos made a warning noise and handed him a small jug. “Matching age.”

Luke tilted his head and gave him an uncomfortable smile. “We...do things differently. Sixteen is rather...young for us.”

Tenos shook his head. “It is good for the girl to be younger, less set in her ways. A wise man can make of a girl a woman he can find happiness with. Alva was fourteen seasons to my eighteen. I was far unhappier then with my mother’s choice than than Essar is with Alva's." Tenos chuckled. "He will change his mind. It's a good match.”

While Luke had heard witches partnered young, the exact ages seemed shockingly young. “You were much older.”

“ _I_ had wanted the honor of belonging to a powerful witch, not a simple commoner girl.” He corrected with a rueful smile. “My mother was only a rancor trainer, but the seer said I had an above average gift.” He passed Luke some napkins. “I had also hoped to stay close to my village. Once Alva's mother paid my groom price and took me with them to Frenzied River, I never saw my father again.” 

Luke stared at him. “Alva didn't...allow a visit?" He hadn't gotten the impression she was that rigid, though of course, one could never tell. "Not even for harvest?”

Tenos didn't look up from where he was gathering a small jar of something bright green. “Alva? It wasn't up to her. We were under her mother's roof and those were the first lands Gethzerion swept across. A year after, most of the smaller villages south of Singing Valley were gone. I with them if the match hadn't been made.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke said as Tenos handed him the jar.

“Everyone has similar tales." He waved a hand, eyes distant. "Mine with much less sorrow than others. My mother never had the sight, but perhaps she felt what was to come. Children understand little of the world." His gaze cleared. "Alva might not have a witch's right to council membership, but she is one of the founders of Agama's Cry.” He raised his chin. "Her granddaughter might sit on a council someday. Maybe even Frenzied River's." 

Because of him, the Force talent his sons had probably inherited, Luke thought with the usual discomfort. “It’s good your son will stay close.”

“To see him will grant us peace.” Tenos gestured behind them. “The location for the meet point was brought here. I will go get it.”

Luke thanked him and took the basket. Tenos was back with a flimsi before long.

“Here.” He offered it to Luke "The Green Mountains are a mysterious place. Especially for men."

"How so?"

Tenos' tilted his head. "Not much is known. But its wise to stay along the Sacred Paths and only the Sacred Paths."

Luke nodded, put the flimsy in the basket and went up to his and Mara’s room.

When he returned to their room Mara was still on the pallet, but her robe was at the foot of it, which meant she’d probably gone out to the ‘fresher at one point, but had crept back into bed and continued to doze off. Unlike her.

The sheets were low on her hips, exposing the Aurebesh 'Whitesun’ inked from just below her left shoulder blade to her lower back. Last night hadn’t given him much chance to simply sit back and admire it, so he did now. The lettering continued intact, the ink unsmudged despite the night he and Mara had. Hardy stuff.

He hadn’t thought of his aunt’s maiden name in a long time; his associations with the Aurebesh went far quicker to the literal, but now that he did, he felt a prickle of that old pain, rendered bittersweet at the thought of placing a hand on the small of Mara's back, saying, _this is her, Aunt Beru..._ , and seeing his aunt’s eyes crinkle with her smile.

An old memory filtered in -- one time when Camie and Fixer had given him a ride home. He’d been miserable, so much so that if he could have, he’d have walked. Camie was fine on her own, sometimes more than fine, but with Fixer she’d turn to someone else entirely, and the entire ride had been full of covert put downs and bragging about some fancy headscarf Fixer had bought her that no one else could afford.

Luke had blown past his uncle and gone straight to his room. At the door there'd been his aunt’s soft knock scarcely minutes later.

She'd entered after he grunted out an acknowledgement -- walked two steps in, saying, “I couldn’t help but notice that the tail of the Marstrap girl’s headscarf was caught on the speeder’s door. Shame too, the fabric seemed too nice to get ruined out of carelessness.”

For a second, Luke had just stared at her. Then it had all fallen into place, all of Camie’s bragging so small and hollow. It hadn't stopped the feeling of being trapped, but he'd chuckled. His aunt had known, of course. She'd understood.

“You won’t tell her, will you, Luke?” She’d said, that knowing look in her eyes. “I imagine she’ll feel bad enough that she damaged it.”

His aunt had always been a great reader of people. Always.

“Done admiring your handiwork?” Mara’s drowsy voice jarred him out of the memory. 

Luke drew forward, leaving the basket behind to sit beside her, running his fingers down her arm. “The canvas.”

Mara shifted to her back and pulled his hand down over her stomach. “Only going to get bigger.”

Disheveled, naked, and sleep-warmed, he always had the urge to burrow as close to her as he could. He contented himself with trailing his hand over the swell of her belly. 

“And since I married you for how well you fit into those tiny fashionable tunics the holostars wear,” he said solemnly. “We’re in trouble.”

Mara made a sharp noise of protest. "Again with the blasted short tunics. You have a problem, Skywalker."

“You could still wear them,” he continued, undaunted. “Even when you’re as big as a Mon Cal cruiser.” He leaned to the side, avoiding getting whapped by the pillow she tossed as he spread his hands. “Look good in them too. It’d be more of a...," he leaned to the other side as she threw hers next, "comfort issue. A lot of you exposed to the elements." He grinned. "You’d be cold.”

Mara covered her face and groaned loudly, “Out of my bed.”

“But,” he shifted closer to her, “I have provisions.”

Her hands lowered, interest piqued.

Luke tipped his head in the basket's direction. “Breakfast.” 

Mara sat up suddenly. “Shavit.” She started looking around. “How late is it? I didn’t look at my chrono when I crawled over to the ‘freshers.”

“Late, but not that late.” He looked on with a bit of disappointment as Mara went for her robe. He went for the basket, setting its contents on the low table, handing the bowl of fruit to Mara, who took a spot beside him. “They gave me the map for the next location.”

Mara popped one of the fruit slices into her mouth. “Yeah, we have to go get Osha.”

“Hmm.” He took a slice of bread for himself and looked through for something to slather on it. There was that small jar of something bright green. 

“Wonder how that’s going to work with Vesha and her husbands.” He undid the lid. Rancors accommodated two riders at most. 

Mara chewed on another slice. “She’s probably wealthy enough for another rancor, but I don’t think so. A man riding a rancor alone would look weird to them. I think Vila’s coming alone -- I suppose one of them will ride with her. They’ll have to figure out who.” She chewed for a few seconds. “I saw you talking to the young one. Meant to ask last night, but,” she gave him a suggestive smile that called up all sorts of memories, “forgot.”

“Ah.” Luke smiled back as he slathered the bright green spread on the bread. “That was Eren.” He took a bite. More citrusy than he would have liked, but good. “He was curious as to why a wealthy witch like you made do with just one husband. Especially having access to the bounty found at the academy here.”

Mara snorted, and started on another piece of fruit. “What’d you tell him?”

“That you're not a traditionalist.” He took another bite. “Should've said you’re too busy.”

“Very busy.” She licked a bit at the fruit residue that smeared on her fingers.

She arched an eyebrow, catching him looking at her and popped another piece of fruit into her mouth, chewed and after a moment said, “With important work,” she stopped and licked her fingers again, wiped her hands on the napkin, and went for some ila arrils in a bowl “Recruitment, research...mm, these are really good.” She passed him the bowl. “These.”

He tried them and while serviceable, he wasn’t as impressed. Ila not in juice form was slightly too tart for his taste. He gave a polite appraisal and handed the bowl back. 

“We bought several ila at the markets to take with us,” Luke reminded her. “It was on the list.”

“Oh, good.” Mara finished the rest of it and the last remaining pieces of buttered bread. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her lick butter off her fingers before either.

“What?” she shot to his stare, picking up another napkin. “I’m hungry.”

“I noticed. It’s great your appetite’s back.” He kissed her cheek and dropped his head to nuzzle her shift covered shoulder, sliding his arms around her.

Her fingers played just behind his ear. 

“Definitely too busy for a second husband,” she murmured. 

“Recruitment, research, _breakfast_.”

“Breakfast especially,” she agreed and he leaned over to kiss her. He’d had no other ambitions especially after the night they’d had, but she turned the kiss deep and greedy, pushed her hands up his tunic until he pulled it off.

Her robe went across the room next, and he wanted to do more about that, but she was too occupied pushing him down on the mess of disarrayed clothing on the floor and he thought, okay, _fine_ , next time. 

\--

Next time turned out to be not much later, but Mara wasn't done, and thanks to the bond’s feedback loop he wasn’t either...until after when he nearly collapsed next to her, abstractly hoping he hadn't pulled anything.

Mara wriggled close to pillow her head on his shoulder. He had a brief flicker of concern -- was it too much? -- but the documents had explicitly mentioned all of this was fine unless there was some other health issue. Cilghal had cleared her for everything short of wrestling a Wookiee.

Still...he slid an arm around her waist. “You okay?”

She looked up at him. “Yeah, why?”

“It’s a lot of...activity. Not sore or anything?”

Mara smirked at him. “It’s a good sore. You?”

“Mm.” He wouldn’t argue, though all of this was reminding him he was out of his reckless years. He brought his other arm around her, the conversation with Tenos surfacing in his mind. “I forgot how young they marry here.”

She made an impatient sound. “They don’t let _me_ forget how young they have kids here.”

“That too.” He rubbed along her back, wary, but he didn’t sense anything but simple annoyance from her. “Met up with him when I went downstairs."

“Oh." She snickered. "How was that oil?”

He shot her a pointed look. “...effective, wouldn’t you say?”

Mara poked him and he laughed. "He was telling me about marrying his son off," he added.

"He happy?" Her eyes drifted up to him, her expression drifting to uncertain. 

"His son? I don't know. Tenos implied he would be. I got the impression he wasn't thrilled with his parents, but that didn't seem anything new."

“No, you don't have to go as far as arranged marriages to find that," she said with a sigh. "Just look at things between Jaina and Leia."

“With Jaina, that's a teenager thing," Luke pointed out. He angled his head to peer at her. "She'll come around."

Mara let out a impatient sound. “I know. It’s just what comes to mind now. Kirana Ti too and her daughter -- the one that stayed while she went to Yavin...” She shifted up and off him to a sitting position. “As a kid, all I had were tutors, every time there was the slightest chance I’d get attached to one, they were gone. I don't have much frame of reference.”

She’d told him as much before, and Luke thought for a moment, recalling Jaina’s face as a child, they way it’d lit up when Leia walked through the door. “I remember when Jaina idolized Leia “They _all_ did her-- her and Han both.”

She was quiet for a while. “While we were in Duro...Jaina said some women shouldn’t have children.”

Luke made a face and sat up next to her.

“I _know_ she didn’t mean it, and I let her have it. She was just upset and not thinking, but Leia has her obligations. Kirana Ti had hers, and you hope your children can understand...” Mara rubbed at her temples. “Is that what happens?” She fell silent letting a few seconds pass. “I don't know...I wonder sometimes if everything has to end in resentment down the line.” 

“No.” Luke shook his head. “No. It doesn’t. It doesn’t _end_ when you’re a teenager. It shouldn’t,” he amended. “That’s a phase like any other.” 

Mara nodded slowly and he felt her mull it over.

But he could still think back. “Going out with my uncle used to be the most exciting thing in the world to me as a kid... and then, I’d do anything to get out of it.” He breathed out. “It’s just growing up. You start off wanting to be as close to your parents as possible and then...as far away from them as you can.” He thought back to lazy afternoons at Tosche Station, doing...nothing. Wasting time. He'd had a lot of it to waste then.

Mara broke through the memory. “And now? What’s it like now?”

“Not so different from perspective on anything else," he offered after a moment. "You see past yourself.” He thought of his uncle. Of Tenos. “Enough to understand why they made the choices they did.” He slid his arm around her shoulders. “I don't think you end up that different from the people who love you best. So you make your peace with it. Well, I have. Jaina and the rest of them will too, I bet...and be terribly embarrassed at all that nonsense.”

Mara smiled. "Bet Leia will never let them forget it."

"Never." Luke leaned against her slightly and whispered, "But I hear you have to make it through night feedings first.”

He didn't move fast enough to miss her elbow.

\--

The instructions in the map Tenos had given Luke were straightforward, and shortly after lunch they headed to the marked area at Sook's Forest to meet with Vesha, her mates and Vila. Like yesterday, Vesha and her mates were already there. Luke supposed they had either had lunch in the town or at their quarters at the inn again, because he and Mara hadn't seen them when they came down. The other guests had already left the day before.

It wasn't just Vila and Vesha with her mates, several village boys were also there waiting with the rancors' saddles. All the rancors seemed to have been close by, since they responded quickly to the call through the Force. After preparing them with saddles for two on their thick necks, Osha and the other rancor, a younger female by the name of Sau squatted placing one enormous arms on the ground. Both rancors kept their other arms raised, poised to catch the women if they mistepped on the knotted skin, but it was an unnecessary gesture, both Mara and Vesha called on the Force for stability as they made their way to the saddles. Vila, who rode on another female about Osha’s age called Naye, had simply stepped into the rancor's extended palm and crossed to it’s neck from there. 

The men climbed up next, through the rancor’s palms. To Luke’s chagrin, his foot did slip on one of the wart-like protuberances on Osha’s upper arm. He’d have given himself away with the Force if Osha hadn’t quickly whisked him away with his hand and deposited him on the saddle.

Mara blew out a sigh, letting her head fall forward to the back of Osha's neck. Luke felt her fondness towards him as she rubbed the back of the rancor’s head. Osha's soft growl felt chiding and directed squarely at him. Luke tried not to be too embarrassed while Mara chuckled quietly. 

Vila called a command and the rancors straightened. Aytell, Vesha’s older mate was sitting beside the seer, unruffled that Eren would be riding with his wife.

“And to think last time I was here with Han,” Luke murmured to Mara. “He and Isolder practically got in a fistfight over who would sit next to Leia.”

Mara looked as if she were about to laugh. She knew the story well. “Han Solo? Really? But he's such an easy going guy, especially when it comes to Leia.”

Luke grinned. “Something tells me the two husband thing wouldn't work for him."

They set off single file towards a delineated gravel path that wound up and into the mountain, trees growing plentiful as they moved further in, sunbeams seeping in through the spaces between the trees’ canopies. It was cooler under the abundant overgrowth of the forest. Occasionally they glimpsed other paths that branched off into shadowy areas, but theirs seemed to be the main one, at least for those traveling via rancor, judging from its width.

As the rancors made their way into the mountain, Luke couldn’t help but notice how Vesha’s eye seemed to wander from Eren beside her to Aytell. Eren seemed unaware, demeanor lively as he spoke animatedly, his hand on her back, stroking down her arm, or clasping her hand. Sneaking a glance to Vila's rancor, Luke detected no reaction from Aytell, but couldn’t discern whether it was genuine or not. The scene felt a little uncomfortable, and he turned his attention away.

“How about Lonnie?” Luke suggested. There were few better ways to pass the time than to prod at his highly prod-able wife, this was the third name he’d suggested just to see her roll her eyes. “Lonnie Skywalker.”

Mara didn't disappoint. “Ugh, _no_. And why all the girl names? The baby is a he.”

“Lonnie can be both,” Luke argued. “And I told--"

“Boy names. Don’t fail me, Skywalker.”

He blurted out the first name that came to mind. “Leithan.”

Another dismayed look. “I take it back.” She raised her hand. “Naming privileges revoked.” 

“After four tries?” he objected. “You try.”

“No. You’re going to give me a hard time out of principle.”

He raised his chin at her. “Convenient excuse.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but he could feel her amusement. “Aldaric.”

“Oh, no.” He wrinkled his nose. “No. Pretentious. I veto any court-sounding names. Full veto.”

She lifted her index finger, then thrust it at him emphatically. “Your sister is a _princess_.”

“Yeah. _She_ is. _She’s_ Alderaanian too.” 

She scowled at him, but continued in a needling tone, “There’s a thought. Something regal and Alderaanian. How about...Norn...I think there was a Norn in one of the old Houses. Norn Skywalker.”

He shot her a horrified look. “You need _your_ naming privileges revoked.”

Mara let out a guffaw. She was about to say something else but Vila interrupted with a command, bringing her rancor to a halt.

“We stop and walk here,” she called out. "Take only what you need."

They dismounted, Mara patting Osha, giving her thanks. Luke did the same, and the rancor nodded its head, indicating he’d return when called. He turned and thumped his way west into an area dense with forest foliage behind the other two rancors. The woods of the Sacred Paths were wild and open to all, they’d been told by the rancor trainer. There would be no need to arrange entry from anyone.

Luke surveyed the area before them. The path they’d been on continued up the mountain, but there was an offshoot to the left, though it was not a path exactly. He itched to open himself fully to the Force. Even without doing so, he could sense great power around them, the concentration of life from the mountain forest. Not being able to sink into it was like feeling the wind without be able to perceive the scent of the breeze. Perhaps when he and Mara got a chance to separate from the group, he could reach out, but for now he didn’t want to risk Vila finding him out and the questions that would ensue.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t look around though. Mara had gone to where the two men were talking to Vesha. Vila herself was somewhere behind them checking on her rucksack. 

There was something shimmering intermittently off in the distance among the trees in the opposite direction from where the rancors had gone. Luke went towards it, peering through the shadowy thickets.

“It is not good to wander too far.”

He turned around, finding Vila there with a fruit in her hand, the walking stick in her other hand. She took a loud bite.

“I thought I saw something...bright.”

Vila nodded. “Sparkflies. Probably.” 

Luke nodded. 

She took another bite. “Or the souls of the ancients.”

He blinked. 

She chuckled. “Is it because you’re an offworlder that this doesn't give you pause?”

“Probably. I've been to places similar to this." He turned his head to stare at where he'd seen the intermittent light. "Elsewhere."

Her brows lifted. "You have? With your wife?"

"Both with and without her," he replied absentmindedly. The light was gone. Maybe it had been sparkflies.

"She allo--"

"Are there burial grounds here?” He turned back to Vila who looked taken aback. 

“No," she replied. "It is not auspicious to be buried in such a place as this.”

He didn't feel any darkness, but still asked, “Were forsaken witches ever sent here?”

Vila shook her head. “Not the Green Mountains. This place is beyond day and night."

She didn't say anything more. Luke suspected what he was sensing was their own nearness to or presence in a vergence, a location strong in the Force. If this was not a burial ground, nor a space for exiles, chances were it was simply the mountains' use for rituals such as these over generations that imbued it with this sort of energy, energy that witches could harness for their own rituals, and on the cycle would go in this space, with this space, a kind of microcosm of the witches' general practice. 

_The land gives it to us._

He'd never quite thought about it that way; a Jedi was not bound by place. But maybe _bound_ was not the way to think of it. He filed it to consider later.

Luke felt Vila's eyes on him and could pick out that she expected another question, but he no longer had any. Not any that were for her to answer, anyway.

"We should join the others," she finally said, giving him a slow nod. "It is time.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Mara touched his arm, and he closed his hand on hers. Their deep bond had suffered during the dark days when she thought she was dying. She’d pulled back into herself, even from Luke."  
> -Kathy Tyers, _Balance Point_

"I need nothing from you, Jai!"

Luke and Vila returned in time to see small pieces of something go flying with Vesha’s gesture. From Mara there was only dismay through the bond, but Luke hurried over anyway, identifying the strewn objects as the anti-nausea candies Leia had given Mara. 

He had no sooner reached Mara where she squatted on the ground to pick them up, than Vesha froze. Her hand went over her mouth as she dashed between some trees, Eren following behind her. Moments later, her heaving was loud enough to be heard where they were. Vila went after them a few seconds later, leaving Aytell waiting.

Luke knelt alongside Mara and took their bag from her hands, gesturing for her to stand while he picked up the rest.

"I thought she was about as far along as you are," Luke murmured to her with a wince as the retching continued.

"I'm not sure. Some women can have it all the way through, but that's not that common." Mara looked towards Vesha's direction. "And Leia was right they do help some. Maybe I should have given it to one of her husbands." 

"That might have looked worse." Luke finished gathering up the last of the candies and put them back in the bag, acutely aware of Aytell's eyes on them as he stood.

"Mm. Like I'm undercutting her." Mara bit her lip. "Yeah. She looked so sick I thought it was worth a try. I caught her last night too." Her eyes raised to him and she smiled. "I didn't think I even had them in this bag." She shook her head, letting the matter go. "Can't believe your sister. Just barely out of bacta and asking _me_ how many times a day I was vomiting." 

Luke put a hand on the small of her back. Jacen had been the first of the Solos to sense Mara's pregnancy and he'd gone straight to Leia with it to cheer her up. Luke couldn't blame him; after going from one debacle to another, and with Leia being as hurt as she'd been, all of them had needed the good news. He and Mara had been planning to tell everyone then anyway. 

Vila returned with a pale faced Vesha behind her, Eren at her heels.

"We continue," Vila said, striding towards the shrubbery path behind them. 

They set off through it until the vegetation wasn't quite as dense, and Luke thought he could see the blue-gray of a body of water between the tangled branches. It faded from view as they moved into a more wooded area, through a narrow human-sized trail. About three miles in, the trail abruptly opened to a field completely covered with rocks of various sizes, a dry riverbed possibly. He looked over at Vila. Was she expecting them to cross it? 

But the seer had only gone to pick two stones as big as her palms and come back. She drew down to sit on her knees in the same manner as she had the day before, her gray tunic pooling around her. Vesha and Mara dropped into the same positions relative to her as the day before, Vesha at her lower right, with a husband at either side of her, Mara at her left, Luke to her right. 

Vila dug in her walking stick into the ground before her.

“What was,” she said, stabbing down at a point and drawing an angled line up. “What is.” She'd switched the order from yesterday, Luke noted.

Vila went back to the initial point and drew another line, forming a 'v'. “What will be.” She drew the final line to close the triangle. 

“The Rite of the Stones begins with the inkstone. It continues with a singing stone.” She extended a hand, gesturing to the mass of rocks maybe three yards away, a breeze lifted and a metallic crackling rang through the air. 

“All the stones here are like this." Vila hummed softly and the two stones levitated before her. "They can sing," she made one tap against the other, producing a clinking sound as melodic as before, "or hold silence." She hummed again and one of the stones lowered to the ground. She tapped the floating one once with her staff and it cracked into two pieces. "We keep both, but we manifest one. The song or the silence? Choose.”

Vila continued, “These are stones from the Sacred Paths, so the body must be cleansed first.” She gestured to the path from which they came. “Pick your stone. Your mates can ready them as you wash in the lake.”

Like the day before. he wasn't completely certain he understood yet what this particular rite entailed, but he supposed more would be explained as they went through it. It was a matter of following Mara's cues, he thought as Mara and Vesha picked their stones from the dry riverbed. Mara came over to press hers into Luke’s palm with a smile before walking back behind Vesha who was undoing the various braids of her hair as she began the path back. Mara's own hand was drawing up to her braid before she disappeared from view. Luke stared after her, scanning into the darkened mass of the woods, fingers running over the smooth surface of the stone. The day wasn’t cold but neither was it particularly warm, and neither of them had towels with them. 

That was a triviality though; Mara could regulate her body temperature if that was necessary. Luke turned his thoughts to the process of preparing ceremonial objects. In general, Dathomiri Force use required a larger interaction with the physical world than what he’d been familiar with. The only analogue he had was the way Jedi engaged with their kyber crystals, but even this was different given the crystals’ unique properties. Witches had all sorts of focusing objects from daggers to stones, to specific plants, so ritual cleansing was basic knowledge that all husbands to a witch were expected to have. It wasn't a particularly complex process, he'd needed nothing but a list of instructions when he'd first done it, but that had been years ago. He hoped he remembered everything right.

Luke turned his attention to the stone, much smaller than the ones Vila had used in her demonstration, and went to a clear spot away from Vesha's husbands who'd moved away to the opposite side. Vila remained sitting with her eyes closed in the same spot, her presence expansive and...spreading? From his current vantage point in the Force, she felt to be vanishing into the larger energy current of the forest. From one moment to the next, her Force presence was gone, or rather indistinguishable from the forest, from his current perception. Vila's robes took on a strange shape, until Luke realized with wonder, and just a twinge of envy, that she was floating probably half a foot off the ground. He'd never witnessed a variant of floating mediation here before though Kirana Ti mentioned some approximation of it existed. The types of meditation she and most witches favored had much more in common with what they knew as moving meditation. 

But it wouldn't do to get distracted, so Luke brought himself back on task, bringing his focus to the rock in his palm. He blew on it gently. That was air. He searched in their bag for the clear glass bottle that Mara had prepared, water left infused with some herbs to catch the sun. He poured some of it on the stone. Water. The next bit was trickier. He dug around the bag for the steel striker and flint that they’d gotten at the market. Next he took out the cloth made from plant fibers and another smaller cloth -- what they called fire cloth. He put the larger fabric and the fire cloth over it, and started striking the flint over the striker.

Aytell and Eren had already started their fire. As Luke tried to light the ember, he tried not to be self conscious over their curious gazes. Luke hadn’t had to start a fire like this in some time, there were faster, more practical ways he preferred. 

Finally the ember lit, and he blew on it gently to fan it up, feeling satisfied when a flicker of flame rose up, followed by another. Fire. He reached for a large spoon-like tool and put the stone on it lifting it over the flame.

A few minutes later, he withdrew the stone. At some point while Luke had been busy with her stone, Vila had finished her meditation and left, but Aytell and Eren had come back to their original positions. Luke took the stone and went to back to sit where he'd been, noticing how Aytell radiated tension, so much so that Luke finally had to ask, “Are you all right?”

Aytell nodded. 

“He is nervous,” Eren spoke up, and while he sensed some tension in Eren too, it was not to Aytell's degree. “He does not like these woods.” He spoke to the man beside him. “Neither Mother Vila nor Vesha are too far.”

“I grew up hearing stories about the woods of the Green Mountains as a child,” Aytell murmured. “During the time of the wild rancors they said slaves would run here because a witch would not follow. Evil men. Sometimes they even kidnapped commoner women.” He met Luke’s eyes, his face a bit tight. “It made no difference, since they were never seen again. The forest punished them.”

Luke leaned towards the men, curious. “What’s on the other side of the Green Mountains?”

“They’re said to be impassable,” Aytell replied. “You have to go around the Green Mountains and through the Snowbark River to pass through this land. That puts you on the path to Cinderbush Valley.”

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that slaves ran away and formed settlements in places thought inhospitable and inaccessible. If that were the case, the fact that the mountain functioned as a vergence and remained in constant use as a site for engaging with the Force probably made it easier to hide. But that was all conjecture; places like this gave rise to stories that said more about the reality of the teller than any actual event.

“Mother Vila did say the Sacred Paths were safe and have been in use for generations,” Luke said, injecting a soothing note to his voice. “I’m sure where we are is safe.”

Aytell didn’t look reassured.

Eren stared off towards where the women had gone and then to Luke. He did so several times until he finally asked, "Was your wife angry? With Vesha?"

"Eren!" Aytell's worried expression lifted in favor of disapproval. "Women's matters are none of our concern."

"It's a simple ques--"

"She wasn't," Luke assured him, sensing some relief from Aytell too despite his scowl. "She just went through all that before we got here. She knows what it's like to want to handle it yourself."

Eren nodded and Luke caught a bit of resignation when he said, "That is how a witch does things."

Luke frowned. "But there is nothing wrong with accepting help if you need it."

He noticed how Aytell looked away, and wondered if he wanted to correct Eren again about Mara not being a witch or if he was back to worrying about the mountain. The moment passed without Aytell saying anything. It was Eren who continued, "She doesn't need help. Vesha might not have the scars of a night witch, but she's known affliction."

Aytell's anxiety crested through the Force. Eren quieted, and a heavy silence fell over them.

\--

Mara and Vesha returned not long after, both with dripping hair that they'd tied back, Vila behind them. Luke watched them half relieved for Aytell, whose nervousness had continued unabated despite how Luke and Eren had tried to engage him in conversation. Vesha appeared aware of this, her eye falling on Aytell once he came into her line of vision. She dropped next to Aytell, just as Mara was taking her spot next to Luke.

"I hope the lake wasn't too cold," he told her.

Mara's presence was bright as it was when she'd emerged from a productive meditation session, clearer due to the forest possibly. Even so, through the bond could he felt a flicker of disquiet like a ripple through tranquil waters, normal, certainly, given the day before, the expectation of some challenge to come.

She wrinkled her nose. "Freezing. You were okay here?"

Luke offered her the rock in his palm. "All done." 

She beamed and reached for their bag withdrawing a small jar. She placed the stone in it.

Vila tapped her walking stick on the unbroken singing stone by her for their attention.

“Now that you are clean, now that your stone is clean, take your singing stone to where the magic calls,” Vila told them. “Choose. Either the song of the width of the skies,” she lifted the stone, “or the silence of the river’s depth." She pantomimed placing something in her mouth. "Which will it be?”

Mara stood and he stood with her, grabbing their bag and slinging it over his shoulder. Behind her he could see Vesha doing the same with her mates, signalling a path further ahead of them. Mara reached for his hand, going back to the path where she'd come from. They crossed the low shrubbery towards the lake and from there they circled its shores, the path finally taking them past the beach into an area with more of the craggly shrubs. That gradually changed back to a taller more wooded forest. From a glimpse through the trees, Luke realized that they were climbing up, but soon the area was too thick with trees to tell.

It was the darkest part they'd been to yet, the interwoven branches of the trees blocking out most of the mild afternoon sun when he looked up. Silence was all around them as if they were completely alone, and yet the forest felt thrumming with life. Aytell's nervousness came to mind. Both at once to someone sensitive, but without a clear lexicon for it _could_ be discomfiting the way paradoxes tended to be. The problem was that discomfort being coopted into a means of control. 

“Here is good,” Mara interrupted his thoughts, going to sit cross-legged on the ground, her eyes distant. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the area, but presumably Mara's meditation had made her more sensitive to the pull of this specific place for some reason. In any case, that was not up to him. He sat beside her.

“You haven’t gotten a chance to reach out, right?” Mara tilted her head, that unfocused look melting away. “Feel the forest.”

“I didn’t want Mother Vila to get suspicious.”

“Well, I’m here, so she’s not likely to notice unless you actually poke her.”

He looked at Mara for a moment. “I can wait.”

She smiled at him. “Okay.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “Okay.” She opened her eyes, just as he sensed a presence. A _very_ nervous one.

"You can come out," she called softly, opening her eyes and standing up, Luke getting to his own feet as well. "It's fine. Aytell, is it?"

Aytell drew forward from the trees, nodding, gaze lowered. "I am sorry for disturbing you, I..."

"You don't need to be sorry," Mara replied. "We hadn't gotten started anyway. You're here for this?" She went for her bag.

He nodded, eyes flickering to Luke, then away. "She should be past her purging cycle, and the midwife and healers felt nothing wrong -- they said she was well enough to travel, but..." He stopped, catching himself. "They help? Vesha's sensitive to taste..."

"My sister used to take them with all three of her pregnancies. They were her idea," Luke offered. 

"They help. I didn't have a problem with how they tasted." Mara passed a handful to him and cocked her head. "Wait, did she send you?"

He shook his head. "She's already started." With Eren, Luke assumed.

"She won't...be angry with you?" Luke ventured. "We don't want to cause any trouble."

Aytell shook his head. "No," he said matter of factly. He raised his hand with the candies. "She'll listen to me. Thank you."

With that, he quickly darted off, leaving Luke staring at the direction he'd gone. 

"I'm just as confused as you are," Mara muttered beside him. "Whatever works, I suppose."

"Yeah," Luke said, turning towards her. "He was so nervous -- _is_ so nervous about being here." And to approach Mara...to Aytell an unknown spellcaster, a woman, even if she wasn't a witch, for Vesha's sake. "Eren mentioned that Vesha's pregnant with his child, and that makes Eren first husband, I guess Eren's that the purposes of the ritual too, maybe."

Mara searched his face. "You think it's sad. For Aytell."

"I don't know." It was none of his business, he thought. "I'm sure there's a lot we don't see." Luke blew out a breath and smiled at Mara. "Anyway." He went for the bag and pulled out the rock from the jar.

Mara nodded and closed her eyes. Luke felt her center herself for a few breaths, unsure of where she would take this particular exercise, but more at ease than yesterday. Everything was much easier when it was just the two of them.

She opened her eyes. “You know...it doesn’t feel right for you to _just_ have cleaned the stone.”

“Mm?”

“I want something more dialogic than what she said. Between us,” she mused. “A different way of thinking through it.”

There was more, so he waited. It was always fascinating to watch Mara work.

“'Who holds the song?'” she continued in that same pensive tone. It had the air of a treatise. The _Book of Law_. “'She who doesn’t hold the silence. Who holds the silence? She who doesn’t hold the song.'” She paused. "That was the bit that Vila was alluding to. Not that different to 'give your words the peace you give your silences'.”

There, Luke couldn’t resist a smile at Mara’s correction of the Basic. The last was a Jedi aphorism he was familiar with: The peace of your silences, give to your words.

Beyond that, he knew the connection she was making; Kirana Ti had long suspected Allya’s _Book of Law_ was a collation of what Allya remembered from the the main Jedi treatises of her time mingled with her own approaches. Kirana Ti and Tionne had done a write up on it a few years ago for the Archives. The correspondence between speech and silence appeared in both texts, an argument that neither was more valuable or substantial than the other, complementary rather.

And if that were the case, the ritual asked the witch in question to either speak or be silent, but...meaningfully. Luke thought back to what Tenos had told him, his mother's loss buried deep. 

Something more involved than the previous task, which for most would be simply to consider their provenance and mark it on their skin. For this rite, a witch could choose to unburden herself or to keep whatever weighed on her, but she had to _recognize_ it. That was at the center: an acknowledgement.

“A witch does this alone,” Mara's eyes settled on him. “Like everything. But I don’t want to do it alone.”

So not about recognition alone. Or not only about it. Not to Mara now.

“Okay," Luke said. "We work with the correspondence?”

She smiled at him. “Yes...the song for me,” she whispered, eyes focusing on him as her smile threaded with request.

 _The silence for me_. And so, he put the stone in his mouth.

Mara leaned her head against his shoulder, and he could feel her Force presence weighed down. He smoothed down a hand from her head to her back, and slid an arm around her, aware of the thin fabric of her tunic, damp where water from her hair had dripped down. At least it wasn't windy.

“I meant it when I said I wanted to do this for us," she started quietly. "There's just matters...I needed to come to terms with. I thought of this as something to force me into it...” Mara’s voice trailed off and she stared off to the trees.

“This is going to be difficult," she said with a self deprecating laugh after a long moment. "I’m too used to you chiming in. Making things easy for me.”

Luke leaned his head against her shoulder. Mara absentmindedly lifted a hand to the side of his face, callused fingers cool from the lake.

“I guess I’ll just...jump in.” She lowering her hand. “Has to do with some information NRI got to me right after the Thrawn Campaign. They discovered some messages apparently between Palpatine and some high level bureaucrat about data from the blood tests for Force sensitives. You remember those.”

He had a vague memory, but there’d been a lot of communiques he’d skimmed during that period. 

“Anyway,the bureaucrat was making some comparisons between standard midichlorian levels and those of another subject, and speculating whether there might be some increase over time. The subject --” She stopped. “The subject was four years old and it was dated twenty ABY. A file was appended comparing the midichlorian counts of the subject and...her origin.”

Mara was looking away, his own throat closed up. The stone felt incredibly heavy suddenly.

“I stopped reading after that and gave it back. NRI had flagged it with the rest of the files they kept about me because it included an old code I had given them --the identification I used whenever I would request Imperial assets.”

His mind raced at the information. It'd been _her_. Her origin. Mara's.

“Around the time when I got the _Fire_ , I tried to dig around for it again, get it back, but it had been just a message with random data. The being who’d forwarded it to me didn’t even remember it. The midichlorian count stuff rarely identified its subjects so most of it was useless information.” She continued staring straight ahead. 

She swallowed. “A little more digging and...well, it had been attached to my file, and after Leia procured my pardon from Mon Mothma, the file was destroyed at my request. That's what I found out.”

It couldn’t be. There had to be some way--

“I asked your sister to get me clearance to go through the midichlorian files to see if there was a copy,” she let out a short pained laugh, “She didn’t ask any questions. Within a week I could waltz into the Intelligence building and stare at their holos until I saw double. I did. I had asked Karrde for leave, made up some excuse.” She shook her head. “I didn’t find anything. This was a little before I started that trading company.”

They’d returned to all that together in how long? Luke worked out. Maybe three years after. And still nothing.

“I tried not to think about it after. That I once had, I don't know, _something_ in my hands. Maybe not their names. The midichlorian data never gave any names, but there might have been identification markers. Something to narrow down and from there...” Mara folded her hands, still staring straight ahead. “I could have kept reading, but I didn't.”

“I had to have known,” Mara bent her head, words coming out slowly, but with a thunderous finality, “that if I gave it back I wouldn’t see it again.”

He wanted to object instinctively. How would she have known?

“I had to know that after all that happened my file would be destroyed, my past rendered irrelevant. I had to know that...piece would be lumped with it.” Her voice went tight. “That _I_ would be lumping it with it. Lumping _them_ with it. I knew that.”

He could feel the ache of it, the dagger of her conviction, and the weight of the stone he held only added to the wrenching feeling. 

She took a shaky breath. “Then for a time, I told myself I had done the right thing. If I were to have learned then that ... my parents, for all that I felt, were...collaborators I...I might have hated them. If I were to have found that they had a choice and made the wrong one. I don’t know if I could have...understood it...Not then.”

She went quiet and he stroked her back, his throat still tight at the upswell of emotion in her, wanting to reach out through the bond. The stone, oddly enough, was what stopped him. It felt like a block, a warding sign, reminder of space, for now. Silence, it came to him, was a space she needed to fill now. When words were needed, nothing else would suffice.

A few minutes later she resumed, lifting her head. “I realized later that I had been afraid. Afraid of what I would find. Afraid of how I would take it. I remembered they hadn’t wanted to let me go, but they did.” The evenness fractured, her voice trembling. “They still did. And that’s what I told myself those early days. It’s what I _wanted_ to focus on. That they didn’t care _enough_ to try to stop it. Or I would remember them trying. So I would let them go too. Turn my back on them...” Her voice went low at the last, a crushing whisper. “It felt good to do that.”

He focused on the warmth of her skin, that and the smoothness of the stone. 

Another shuddering breath. “And now I...I still can’t...I can’t imagine being in their position...” she choked out, a hand passing roughly over her cheek. “But I’ve made mistakes... if I can’t ever...” her voice broke and he reminded himself she _needed_ this, however much it hurt. He needed to give her the silence to fill. “If I couldn’t ever...explain...” She took another shaky breath, her voice husky as she said, "Sometimes I felt...I felt that's why I'd never have a child. Because of how I...how I sometimes hated them." A sharp inhale. "Wished them ill."

His eyes were stinging, his throat hurting. For an instant it didn't feel like holding the stone as much as it felt like it was pinning him down. 

“I never wanted to _let_ them explain. I thought the worst of them...and...and I,” her voice cracked, “I love this child so much...even now, I can’t...I don’t want...” 

Mara shook her head, sniffing, and he could have told her so many things: that she’d been hurting deeply, that there was no way she could have known, that she’d been different then. That her parents wherever they were, whoever they were, had _always_ loved her, just as she herself _still_ loved them, even without knowing them, the way she loved their son, and always would. He _knew_ all this, trusted in the goodness of it, the strength of these bonds across time and place. Even circumstance.

It simply couldn’t be otherwise, and he ached to put it to words, the stone feeling as crushing as a prohibition. _No_.

She dropped her head in her hands and bent forward, shoulders shaking. “I’m so sorry...it doesn’t matter...if they could or couldn’t stop it...I just wish I could tell them...I’m so sorry...all they might have done...or not done... doesn’t matter...”

But as he stroked her back, body shaking as she emptied herself out, it struck him this wasn’t a starting point for Mara. 

It was an end.

She _knew_. 

She’d come to it herself, and this was closing the circle. _That_ was why she’d asked for silence. Through it she was letting him be a part of something massive, all the more so for that fading ghost of the woman she’d been when they first met, burying her losses because she hadn't known what else to do. She’d found her way, built herself anew, out of toil and sheer perseverance, a castle out of ruins. 

This was her very soul at a threshold, and no small thing; Mara had for so long jealously guarded her pain, first out of survival, then later during her illness, for fear of hurting him. He understood, of course, felt the impulse himself. He'd accepted it. 

But maybe he shouldn't have so easily. Maybe there could have been a better way to have faced the illness together. Sometimes you had to turn _into_ the hurt, so that there’d be no regrets. 

Just gratitude.

And grasping that, he could let it go, all his tamped down grief and fear. Because it was a priceless gift from life itself: The opportunity to do better, be better together.

Some time later her sobs quieted into gasps. Luke continued stroking her damp hair and her back until that too faded into stillness. The temperature must be dropping, he thought idly, wiping at his face. He gently pulled Mara towards him, tucking her closer into him. She went with a sigh, body loose against him. The stone felt intrusive, but not intolerable. 

_Wait_ , it said.

She shifted, opened her eyes briefly to look up at him. Her face was splotchy and tear stained, utterly beautiful. Her arms slid over his.

"I love you," she rasped. 

Luke smoothed her hair back, then withdrew the stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the similarities between this and the stone field in The Hunted are purely incidental! I actually came to singing stones from a different unrelated direction, thinking that mountain witch culture probably gave stones a special importance. All my rituals part from that idea.


	6. Chapter 6

Luke had a vague awareness of being hungry, but he was still tired and warm under the blankets. He deferred the feeling until it went away, and he drifted into deeper sleep. 

Some time later, he woke up to a taste of ila arrils so sharp that it banished his grogginess. It took him a second to realize that was because that was _Mara’s_ perception.

Her amusement came to him through the bond.There was a faint apologetic note to it; she hadn’t meant to wake him.

Luke rubbed at his face, trying to adjust to the disorientation of two sense perceptions without withdrawing from the edges of the bond. 

They and their party had spent the night in the mountain. After the ritual, they’d returned to the spot by the dry riverbed. Vesha and her mates had been waiting, and Vila led them all back and around the lake. From there, they'd called the rancors who still had their supplies, and made camp. He and Mara had gone out to the lake after dinner.

It'd been a clear windless night, and the stars overhead had been mirrored on the lake's surface, creating a continuum that seemed fitting to the moment. He'd always liked stargazing, though admittedly, he seldom had time for it these days. Before, he'd thought of the possibilities in the stars, the various permutations his life could take through adventures elsewhere, a comfort when he'd felt trapped. The stars were comforting in a different way now; tonight their reflections, whispered that one needn't go so far to become something different, new. The expanse of space was close enough to touch.

That could be the seed of an answer to what he and Mara might be working through, the meaning of a child now, for them. He wasn't so foolish to think he could come to anything definite, but just the exercise itself had value. His thoughts however, still felt muddled, incomplete, and he'd let the thought flit away, content to remain in the moment, holding his wife, listening to her as she talked about the coming part of the ritual, the construction of an amulet. Feeling, Mara had said, made manifest.

More tired than they expected from the day, they'd gone back to huddle in their bedrolls. Once there, Mara surprised him by wanting to idle with the bond in a way she hadn't since the illness. 

The holodramas liked to portray Force bonds like an easy mind meld. They neglected to mention that they were largely prosaic, that most of the time you simply had an increased awareness to someone else’s moods. As it so happened, there _were_ moments of further enmeshing with another’s mind, but the holodramas rarely depicted how strongly the human mind guarded its borders. That kind of connection that deep was hardly pleasant at first. Luckily, the mind was malleable. You either tricked its focus elsewhere with a highly sensorial activity -- say, the adrenaline surge of fighting for your life -- until it accommodated, or you taught your mind to ignore the unpleasantness for as long as it took to adjust. From there on, depending on how entangled you were, it was a question of managing it, which imposed its own challenges. 

Luke wasn’t sure if it'd been the ritual, the soothing lifeforce around them, the pregnancy or all three, but the adaptation phase to sink into the bond's edges was much shorter than he remembered. Deep into the forest's Force flow through Mara as she was through him, they'd drifted off. 

And now...from this close, through Mara’s perception the ila arrils tasted better. Luke focused on her enjoyment. It took a bit of concentration when they were fully awake and there was no rush of adrenaline to wipe out that nagging impulse to center himself away from the bond’s edge.

Mara focused a bit more on the ila, which made it easier. Luke used that as an anchor point, reaching out further through her perceptions. She was sitting out beside the lake and he could feel the sun hitting her right shoulder through the thin fabric of her sleeping robe.

Luke went back to the anchor point, the tangy-sweet burst of ila on Mara’s tongue as it were his, the hand plucking the arrils, the fruit’s residue sticky between thumb and forefinger, the brush of lips against fingers. He could have been perfectly content with all the sensory input, but when all of it came back to Mara through the loop, it had defaulted to another, slightly more complex response that shot through him in turn.

Probably the hormones.

Mara had stopped, and the lack of stimuli and her amusement jarred through his concentration, making the pull back to himself stronger.

He smiled to himself as Mara adjusted the bond, a harder tug to her side, and went back to the arrils. He realigned his own concentration and they were back at the same edge.

It was still early enough that the rest of their party were still a bit asleep, as far as he could tell. Luke sat up and got his and Mara’s things, stopping to wash up before threading his way back to the lake, opting to keep the sleeping robe, since the morning wasn't that chilly. Luke followed the feeling of the smooth roundness of the fruit in Mara’s hand, the pebbly sand between her toes. Finding her was easy. 

Mara came into view a few minutes later sitting by the shoreline, her boots several paces behind her, breeze ruffling her loose hair, a halved illa and the knife she'd used for it beside her, its arrils in a bowl. He wasn’t sure whether it was her sensation or the breeze had traveled to him, but he felt it all the same. 

_This_ was always the high point of confusion -- to be here _and_ there when they were physically and psychically this close without danger to focus on, without external events in quick succession to organize their perceptions towards with razor edge clarity. Even when they fell into the bond this deeply at some point during their lovemaking, they didn't end up _doing_ much in it.

A tiny adjustment in concentration helped Luke leave his boots beside hers along with their things. The morning was misty and much cooler than yesterday had been. From this area of the lake he could see the silhouette of a tiny island in the distance. He blinked, as it dawned that no he couldn't, _his_ gaze was on where Mara sat. _She_ was staring ahead. He shook off the strange overlay, and dropped beside her on the gritty sand.

Mara looked over at him, her mouth red and intriguing with ila and Luke leaned to kiss her just as she drew towards him under the same impulse, except that they’d miscalculated distances and there was a thunk and a flash of pain at his _and_ her forehead that ratcheted up in the bond's tight loop. 

“Ow.” Mara was rubbing at her forehead and so was he, but it wasn’t his forehead, he realized belatedly. His hand rubbed _over there_ at Mara’s forehead and _this_ was Mara’s hand at his. They’d never figure out who started laughing first, but Force bonds could actually be even _more_ preposterous than the holodramas showed. They ended up having to pull back to a more manageable part of the bond, a looser link. 

There was something to there being _some_ distance to close, Luke reflected, sliding an arm around Mara’s waist, and hauling her to his lap. Not being there, but _getting_ there. 

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Mara whispered, looking up at him as she shifted, settling herself more comfortably against him.

He grinned up at her as he loosened the sash of her robe, letting the top fall past her shoulders, midway down her back, but not all the way down. 

“You can wake me up any time.” He nuzzled her neck. “You have needs.”

He felt her shiver, but she scoffed, and pulled away enough to bring a handful of arrils to her mouth. She took a messy bite like she wouldn't usually, the purplish liquid trickling past the corner of her lips, several drops falling below her collarbone, color bright against her skin. He licked those off first, saving her lips for last; the ila was no longer too tart at all.

“Not a need.” Her eyes were closed, her chest rising with her inhale before they fluttered open again, heavy lidded, green like the fanning leaves of snowbark trees. "I'm not starving."

“A want then.” He reached for the bowl with a smirk. “If you want to be pedantic, Master Jade Skywalker.”

She mock-glared, but her eyes traveled along the length of his arm to the arrils.

Luke considered eating them, but offered them to her instead. It went as messily as before, her tongue warm and wet on his wrist, her mouth hot when she sucked on his thumb, nipping at the pad. He’d made a very good choice.

She pushed his robe off his shoulders and went for another handful of the arrils from the bowl beside them. “I thought you didn’t like ila all that much.”

“Changed my mind,” he whispered, and pulled her back down for another kiss.

\--

Vesha, her mates, and Vila were having breakfast by the time they returned, still damp from their dip at the lake. While the lake had been colder than he'd have liked, the day was slightly less misty now, gradually warming up. With Mara grumbling beside him, Luke braced himself for commentary, but on the whole it seemed like a small price to pay for such a pleasant start to their morning.

He didn't have to wait long. Vesha didn't even look at them as she pronounced, “Fucking in a lake is a terrible idea.”

Vila looked up from the gruel she was eating. She flashed Vesha an unimpressed look. “You think so?”

Vesha scowled. “You’re joking, right, Mother? Or is this something you easteners do? We in the west know better. Step on a pit or sand bar--”

Vila cackled. “Fact. But it’s banks are no less comfortable than your bedroll.” She nodded meaningfully. “That is what we easterners know.”

Vesha made a derisive snort. “Too many rocks.” Her eye roved over Mara who went for some polystarch. “They had no bedroll.” She leaned back slightly, and directed herself to Mara. “Do you get the bruising or did you consign your poor mate to it?”

Mara sat down with the polystarch and another bowl. "Glad to see the candies worked. No purging during breakfast?"

“Your robes aren’t that stained,” Vesha noted, but this seemed more an attempt at distraction than genuine curiosity.

"Why haven't you passed your awakening rites?" Mara asked, pouring the powder in. Luke covered up his grin by going for the water canteen. "Do western witches do them later?" She poured the water on the powder. "In Singing Mountain -- "

"They don't do them later in the west," Vesha bit out. She wrinkled her nose at the bread that rose from the bowl. Dathomiri were suspiscious of food not cooked by a fire. "I am to undergo them after the child."

"Why?" Mara pressed. "Plenty of preg-teeming witches take them." She turned to Vila after tearing off a piece of the bread, and passing the bowl to Luke. "The witch who taught me magic for one. Did you, Mother?"

Vila shook her head with a smile. "I am neither a first born, nor a single daughter. The charge to teach the magic to a daughter never fell on me. I've been free to devote my life to the Arts, to teach as I saw fit." 

Before the conflict, Kirana Ti has said once, it’d been was a witch's duty to teach her daughters, but the loss of many witches during the clashes with the Nightsisters, meant that by necessity Force talented women had to learn from whatever witch was available to teach them. For many witches not wishing to specialize, the practice of learning from their mothers still continued. 

Luke ate his breakfast absentmindedly. Was it the same to pass on teachings of this sort to one's children than any other apprentice? His thoughts went back to Jacen, he’d going back on his own decision to stop using the Force...to save his mother. Luke himself had laid out Jacen's options as he seen them, and trusted Jacen would make the right choice...

Use the Force, as you've been trained to do, he’d told him, or leave it alone. 

But he hadn't known then what Jacen would decide or the pressure he'd be subjected to. Luke had intuited it, certainly, and he'd hoped Jacen would embrace his gift and overcome his doubts because he was _needed_ , but it could have gone any number of ways. Jacen could have kept his resolve. Leia could have died. This would have been out of his hands, and yet Luke felt it like a heavy weight. But pressing Jacen one way or another would be failing in his role as Jacen's guide. He'd long learned his limits in that regard.

That was one thing, the thought nagged. Another thing entirely would be for that to be his son. Mara. Not the same at all.

Every act that doesn't come out of absolute faith can lead to fear and darkness, he told Jacen, too. He should have added that absolute faith needed constant upkeep.

Mara looked in his direction and he smiled lightly. She turned to Vesha, "Are you a first born?"

Vesha nodded almost grudgingly. "My mother was Oritha of the Western Flatirons."

Vila put down her bowl, Luke sensed some surprise as if she hadn't known. "Daughter of Treyu, The Earth Shaker?"

Vesha looked away.

Mara tilted her head. "A powerful land witch, I take it?"

Vila nodded to Mara, but asked Vesha, "Does she still live, child?"

"Yes."

"Tell the story then.” She jerked her chin in Mara’s direction. “Mara doesn't seem to know."

Vesha's expression darkened slightly. "They call my grandmother the Earth Shaker because when evil witches gathered in our area to attack us, she waited by the Two Necks -- a passage between the mountains that led to our clan. Then she brought them down upon them."

Mara blinked. "Evil women? Nightsisters?"

Vesha scowled. "A caster of dark spells is sister to no one." 

"Gethzerion hadn't reached her full power in those days," Vila clarified. "She'd just been cast out. There have always been witches who've turned from Allya's law. Gethzerion's infamy was that she made clan of them."

"So your mother crushed these...evil witches with nearby boulders?"

Vesha shook her head. "No. She sunk the mountains. The shake of the earth collapsed them.” 

Mara turned wide-eyed to Luke. Neither of them were privy to the spells that each school used, and there was some variation even at the level of family techniques passed down, but that kind of power was still astonishing.

“The western clans have never conceded to evil."

Vila’s eyes hardened slightly. “The western clans are known to be too quick and severe in judgement.” She softened her voice. "It's said Gethzerion herself was loathe to go west. Treyu was teeming too, the old stories say," Vila added thoughtfully. "Was it with your mother?"

Vesha nodded.

"Weren't teeming witches required to stay in their villages?" Mara asked. "By clan law until the birth?"

Vesha's expression was grim. "They are." 

\--

With that, they set off to the last location. It was at a higher point than yesterday’s, along a stone trail that grew steeper the more they climbed. Paths for the rancors had been carved into the mountainside, gigantic handholds and toeholds worn smooth with age. At first intimidating, even with Luke's relative familiarity with the Dathomirian wilderness, Osha and the rest of the rancors had radiated such confidence through the Force that his disquiet soon melted away. The path soon evened out into the usual mountain brush at either side, slightly less thick than it'd been below them. 

The landscape now less striking, thoughts of Jacen kept nagging at Luke as the rancor's hike wore on, the way Mara's eyes fell on him gave little doubt she was aware something was on his mind, but she had yet to ask, probably waiting for him to gather his thoughts. It was difficult to settle on what exactly was the source of his anxiety. From any view he approached the challenges Jacen had struggled with there was some sort of concern. With a hand rubbing at the bridge of his nose, he gave up. 

"I was thinking about what you said," he blurted out.

Mara smirked a little, giving him a sidelong glance. "Of course you were. What out of all my wisdom?"

He gave her a playful eyeroll. "Raising a child that's different from us. I keep thinking about Jacen. Choosing to leave the Force alone...until Leia." He could feel Mara ready to interject and shook his head. "I know he needed to make his own decision. But...it'd be...harder to take that stance if..."

"If he were yours?"

He flinched. It sounded wrong, but it was true nonetheless.

Mara stayed quiet for a moment. 

"Children," she said finally. "Are a terrible conflict of interest."

Luke nodded. "I guess that's the answer right there," he replied. "Some part of it at least. I suppose the old Order thought it was easier to be impartial without a blood connection.” 

A bit suspect, he’d thought, given how some masters wrote about their apprentices. What they’d called attachments could spring up from any sort of conditions. Blood ties were the tip of the iceberg.

“In any case, _some_ impartiality might be where the line between raising a child and teaching an apprentice is -- to be crude about it. "

Mara flipped her braid over her shoulder. "Didn’t you babysit the Solos before they got their lightsabers?"

"If you mean a comparison, Han would be the first to set you right." Luke threw her a wry smile.

"Oh?" She arched an eyebrow. "Do tell." 

"When I took the kids and they put me through the ringer." He thought back with some nostalgia. "He and Chewie would come home in time to put them to bed while I was nearly passed out on the couch. Han would do his rounds and then come over to me and say, 'You know what's the difference between you an' me, kid'? And I'm expecting him to say something about how at least I have the Force, but no, he says, 'You. You get to go home'." 

Mara chuckled. "Did you get to talk to him about Jacen?"

"No, he had enough on his plate with Leia...and he's never cared about the details in things like this. It's enough for him that everyone's okay -- that Jacen is back to using the Force. He didn't...didn't much understand why he'd stopped." He turned to face her. "Jacen said it'd just seemed wrong to him."

"But not to you? That Jacen stopped, I mean"

Luke shook his head. "It's not my call to make."

"But Han did. He felt some way about it and told Jacen."

His eyes difted over to Mara. "He can."

"Because Jacen is not likely to feel the same pressure from him, his father, as he would from you, his master, in things Jedi. If you'd taken Han's position it might have tipped Jacen away from going as deeply into his questions as he did. That's the line, you mean. One approach to it."

"Like a conflict of interest." he muttered. "Handing it off."

"Probably easier said than done, but at least in that situation, you don't have to struggle for impartiality." She paused. "Or it's less."

"It doesn’t feel the same though," Luke stared off. "Han hasn't really involved himself with the kids'," he almost winced; they were _Jedi_ now, "Force use."

"Arguably, he hasn't learned to step back the way we have. Your sister has. We do it all the time." Mara reached over to wind her arm through his. "Isn't that a big part of what we teach -- that we don't move others, the Force moves _us_."

"Yeah." He sighed. "It's just that...it's in our sphere, _we_ have the Force..."

" _We_ are Jedi," she dropped her hand to her belly, " _he_ might not choose that necessarily, beyond learning basic discipline. He might choose to be a slicer or an engineer and answer to people who aren't Jedi, who don't have the Force." He sensed a flicker of unease from her. "We don't know."

Luke pouted at her. "Jedi can make great engineers." 

She flashed him a pointed look, but there was a more upbeat tone in her next. ”We don’t need to resolve anything now. I do remember hearing _someone_ say we had to make it through night feedings first."

He groaned softly. "Quoting me at me is an unfair tactic." 

"Only losers whine about fairness."

Luke laughed. "What am I conceding again?"

She leaned against him. "That there _might_ be a time to step away and let someone else guide. Even if we're both more...qualified in some ways."

He wanted to smile, but the heaviness of the feeling hit him. The matter was far from closed. They'd only begun to think through it.

Mara's hand lifted to his shoulder, her thumb rubbing across, a stabilizing touch in all the uncertainty. "And when I can't let go, you'll pull me back."

Luke did smile then. "Hey, we were talking about _me_."

"Whatever."

\--

Not too long later, Vila called for a dismount and they sent Osha and the two other rancors off into the forest with their thanks.

A short climb by foot led them past a creek and up to a rocky mesa overlooking the gently rounded peaks of the Green Mountains. Here and there, he spied crude structures, squatting hillforts, but the mossy blanket dominated the landscape, the view unbroken by the mountain fog they frequently encountered in the mountains here. The Force felt thicker here.

Vila took a spot at the center and they all took up their usual positions before her at either side. 

“What will be.” Vila dug her walking stick into the ground and Luke knew she was drawing the same sigil as before, even as she changed the order again. Vila drew the top line from her initial point first and dug her stick in at the end point. She went back to her original point and drew the angled line down. “What was.” She drew the final line completing the upside down triangle and dug the stave at the central point. “What is.” 

She looked up at them gray eyes clear. “Our last stone is what the river leaves, what it takes. A stone that lies between earth, and water, part of both and yet neither, ever in movement to the unknown. This, too, a teeming witch holds." Vila closed her eyes. 

"For this last rite you will need a river stone," she continued without opening them. "Have your mates go into the sacred woods back to the creek we saw on our path here. From there they shall pick the river stone. We chant now.”

Luke felt the spike of anxiety from Aytell. 

Vesha's face clouded. She must have felt Aytell's apprehension too, because she leaned forward from where she sat on her knees. "Mother, is it safe for men?"

Vila opened her eyes. "Safe?" 

"Men are taught not to wander, especially here."

Her response was noncommittal. "So they are."

"Mother, I cannot allow my mates to wander where it is unsafe."

Vila made a sound from the back of her throat. "You say, wander, but no one with _intention_ wanders. They have their path. They have their end. Linked to yours as the creek is to the river, but not yours."

Eren leaned over to whisper something to her. Vesha shook her head at him, disapproval flaring through the Force. He looked down at his lap, color rising up his cheeks.

Vesha's brow creased. "It is further from us than they have been. The woods can be dangerous."

"Do you not trust your intent child? Or theirs?" 

Vesha's frown didn't lift, but Vila closed her eyes again and began to hum. Reluctantly, she nodded at her mates. 

Mara squeezed Luke's hand and closed her eyes as he stood, joining the two men. He felt the eddies of the Force lift and begin to ripple out around the witches as he turned away and into the mountain brush.

The walk to the creek went by quickly, the two men were silent as shadows. The trickling of running water grew louder as he neared, the foliage clearing to reveal a thin stream that ran a stone-filled course. 

He scanned around the area. There were plenty of stones to choose from, the question was what would suit the rite's purpose. If Mara meant to follow any set of instructions for this, she would have let him know. The fact she hadn’t placed it implicitly at his discretion.

Luke squatted by the creek, eye running over the mass of stones by it, most light in shade. Idly he picked one up, running his thumb over the smooth surface. To think of it too much would obviate the point. He held one in his hand trying to picture what would become of them going by what Mara had mentioned yesterday, two stones inlaid in a metal disc, a singing stone and a river stone. Containers, she'd said.

The hushed voices of the other two men jarred him out of his consideration. They were a few paces away, the view of them half blocked by some shrubs as the creek turned. The set of Eren's chin in profile exuded tension, palpable even at the distance and without the Force. Their voices were low, but not low enough to be inaudible. 

“Refuse,” Eren was hissing.

“I will do no such thing." Aytell retorted, his tone measured. His sense to Luke seemed uneasy, but mostly out of concern. "It was Vesha’s decision and you have been at her side since the conception.”

“I am first husband.”

Luke wondered if he’d draw attention to himself by straightening up and moving further back along the creek.

“You are. But _Vesha_ decides who will be beside her.”

“You are interfering! Bad enough that you come to her with the Jai’s gifts after chastising _me_ over our place.”

He probably could. Given the argument, he doubted they’d notice.

“Refuse,” Eren repeated.

“This is Vesha’s decision. I don’t even think you wish this in your heart. It is spite, and unkind to Vesha and to me. Have we treated you this harshly?”

“The child--”

“The child is not yours. It is Vesha’s child. You have only the privileges that she decides. Vesha so much as looks another direction and you forget yourself.” There was a beseeching undertone beneath the reproach which surfaced at the next, “Eren, it is good you love her, but not like this.”

“Now you mean to tell me how to love? You think me blind? As if I cannot see that Vesha’s heart turns to you as much as yours turns to her. Even the child I sired is not mine to love.”

Luke couldn’t hold back a wince and straightened up, ambling back. He was not looking in their direction, but the Force around them felt tumultuous. Aytell's concern giving way to anger, a fact confirmed when he raised his voice enough that it carried.

“Quiet. That greedy, grasping thing that makes you say such things is not love. Vesha has bent for you more than she should, and still you cling. Do you not know your fortune? First husband to a witch who will inherit all the lands in the Shrike’s pass? Father to her firstborn?”

“I give not a whit about any of it!" Eren's voice was loud and choked, and then there was only the trickling of the creek. 

Luke ducked down by the water, just a little unsettled. He sensed Aytell still there, but didn't dare look in his direction and dragged himself back on task.

\--

Vila, Mara and Vesha were still chanting in a low murmur, their eyes closed when Luke returned to the mesa. He dropped into his spot beside Mara, noting that Eren was already there, sitting stiffly by Vesha. Aytell returned a few minutes later, and once he was there, Vila opened her eyes and called this part of the rite to a close. Luke handed Mara the stone he'd selected and with that they set back down along the same path and summoned the rancors.

While Luke wasn't completely sure, he thought they might be moving along an eastward path not too removed from the creek. They stopped once the brush cleared some and set up camp, Vila announcing that this was where they would stay until early evening. The final rite was to be done elsewhere at night. 

“It’s not such a complicated thing,” Mara was saying, “to cast without speaking or moving. The focus is different.”

He’d been half listening as he worked, thinking with some amusement that she was too. She'd mentioned wanting to test the waters a bit more on the ride here from the mesa. Lunch was a simple afair of nuts, tubers, and agama eggs, easy to assemble, and soon he was sitting beside Mara who traded off her bowl of peeled nuts for his unpeeled ones.

“But the song holds the power,” Vesha objected. Eren was finishing the last of his tubers. The way his eyes wandered to the women as they talked reminded Luke of him during the first ritual at Vila’s home, his riveted expression as the women began to chant. While Luke tried to keep his thoughts away from their affairs -- he hadn't even brought them up to Mara yet -- Eren’s sullenness had made it difficult not to give them thought. His surliness had simmered just under the surface the entire time they'd set up camp, gone only now when his attention was on the discussion around him. 

Aytell, on the other hand, had the same serene sense about him, as if he’d been unruffled by their Eren’s clash. But it could just be he was better at keeping his feelings to himself.

“No. _You_ do. The song simply comes from you.”

Vesha turned to Vila, she’d registered the strain between her mates, but hadn’t acknowledged it as far as Luke could see. “Mother Vila, this is not what is taught.”

Vila laughed. “It is not. The words exist before you, Jai,” she pointed at Mara with the top of her walking stick. “And they will exist after you. That makes them powerful.”

“Ah,” Luke could hear Mara’s satisfied smile as she found the ground for her point. Her fingers snapped through the nuts as she spoke “But they _come to being_.” Snap. “From a mouth.” Snap. “From the heart.” Snap. “ _First_. The words are a guide.”

Vila reached for some of the agama eggs she’d peeled. “Small spells, perhaps, but more complicated ones?” She took a bite.

“Any spell. Even a healing spell. I can show you. It’s not that hard once you shift your focus.” Mara brought one of the peeled nuts to her mouth.

“‘Shift your focus?’” Vila echoed after she’d finished her egg. 

Mara thought back as she chewed. “The inner eye. It looks in not out.”

Luke saw Aytell grab his plate and several of their water gourds and take a path down to the creek.

Vesha’s expression was still incredulous. “But you seek the land, the source of all things. The eye looks outside.”

“The land is already inside you. You take it wherever you go.”

Vila made a face as she put down her empty plate. "How can that be true?" She pressed her hand to the ground. "The land isn’t something you own.” She picked up the earth and let it slide through her fingers. “It is something you _touch_." She dusted her hand on her hip and shook her head. Luke saw Mara open her mouth then close it as she read that the discussion was done. Mara relaxed her shoulders. He could almost see her thinking _next time_.

"Ochre Falls aren't very far from here," Vila commented, looking past their camp to the forest. “I haven't been there for years. And there is some time before the evening meal."

"I will join you." Vesha got to her feet and gave a quick scan. Catching Eren's eye she asked, "Where is Aytell?"

"Refilling the gourds," Eren mumbled.

Vesha's eyes narrowed. 

A bit defensively, he added, "I feel him close."

"Join me when you've checked on your mate.” Vila told her, a little impatiently. “You can come too, Jai, if you wish." She walked off toward the trees.

Vesha's tone became sharp once the seer's figure receded from view. "Another spat?" She made a chastising noise and whirled in the creek’s direction.

Luke caught Mara's eye as Eren watched Vesha go. Eren stayed unmoving, expression distant, half slumped against a tree. Luke had thought it'd been Eren that Vesha had favored, but clearly he didn't feel that way. There might be a galaxy of things between the three of them that he couldn't guess at from his vantage point, but he didn’t need to know them to sense the twist from sullenness into dejection in the frame of Eren’s shoulders. It called to mind how little was needed to make you feel small and alone. Part and parcel of having more of yourself to grow into, Luke supposed.

"What's so special about Ochre Falls?" Mara called out him beside Luke.

Eren didn't look at her when he said, "Like Quetha Bluff."

"Quetha Bluff?"

"Where we were. It's another sacred place. Powerful."

Mara paused. "You could feel it? The power in it?"

He nodded, straightening up a little. "I can." Eren raised his eyes to her. "I can feel all the forest.” Somewhat petulantly, he added. “It's nothing to worry about as Aytell thinks.

"You have a strong gift." 

He nodded again.

"I wondered...," he started softly then stopped and started again in a stronger tone, "In the stories Jai are said to have a sword of light..."

Mara smiled. Luke did too, that was always a good hook to draw beings into conversation. "We call it a lightsaber," Mara told him.

"How...," he met her eyes, interested, "how does such a blade maintain the light conjured?"

Mara drew back slightly and Luke felt his brow crease. Conjure? 

"We don't conjure it." Mara dragged her bag close. "The light comes from a crystal actually. Let me show you."

He looked on wide-eyed as Mara withdrew her lightsaber. Eren gave a furtive look around, then came over to crouch in front of her.

"This is it." She passed a hand down the hilt. "This is metal. It has a power cell inside and --" She snapped open the chamber to reveal it.

"Oh." Eren sounded disappointed, tilting his head for a better look inside. "It's a machine. Like a blaster."

Mara laughed softly, looking over at Luke. He rolled his eyes at her, catching Eren's puzzled glance.

"It's not, really," he couldn't help clarifying to Mara's chuckle. "It's nothing like a blaster."

Eren flashed Luke a dismissive look. “You would know ho--?”

"And here," Mara interrupted, drawing out the crystals with the Force.

Eren's face lit up in an expression long familiar to him. Luke met Mara's eyes. Familiar to her, too, he knew.

"Magic crystals," Eren breathed.

Luke chuckled at Mara's dismayed expression.

"Sure,” she said reluctantly. “This is where the light comes from."

"Not within?" Eren frowned. "The inner eye?"

"Well, yes. You form a link to the crystal. Put of yourself in it, and then it helps you feel where your arm should go. You can take a closer look." She floated the crystals to him. 

"It feels like magic," he sounded disappointed again, "but so quiet."

"I'm more used to it as Jai," Mara explained. "It's faster for me to cast this way."

"But you were taught spells too...like a witch? You sang last time -- at Mother Vila's." He reached for the crystals.

Mara nodded. 

"Singing," he gazed at the crystals in his hand, "is very beautiful."

"It is."

His eyes flickered up to her. "Why do Jai not sing?"

"We don't have to.” 

Confusion passed through his face. "You've never _wanted_ to?"

"Not before I came here, no."

"No Jai has wanted to?"

Mara glanced over at Luke. "Maybe. But no one was as good at it as Allya."

Eren mulled this over as he stared down the crystals in his hand. He looked up. "They feel strange. Warm." He offered them back.

Mara set them back in place in the lightsaber and reassembled the hilt with the Force. She put the lightsaber back in the bag.

"And the crystals -- did you find them?"

Mara shook her head. "Nor the blade. It was a gift from one of my teachers." She smiled and Luke could sense her restraining herself from drifting a look in his direction. "A very long time ago. He thought it would encourage me to learn." 

Eren winced. "He. A man?" He sighed. "Jai."

"You would rather learn from a woman?" she asked mildly.

"I would not learn at all," Eren muttered. "Allya left the magic to her daughters."

"And her sons?"

Eren shook his head. "You know the stories." His voice grew firmer, older past his years. "Men brought death to Dathomir. Allya brought life. Her life purifies us. _Holding_ the gift purifies us -- it is that what we pass on." 

Luke could see Mara clench her jaw, but her tone remained gentle. "No one needs purification for simply being as they are. Whatever the ancients did has no claims on you. You can do more than simply hold the gift."

Eren's eyes flashed, demeanor changing, though his words were soft enough to sound deferential. "As if holding is trivial, you mean. We should _all_ desire the honor of your light blades -- all the easier to run our kin through."

Luke gaped, Mara's own dismay bubbling up beside him. "No--"

"That is what Jai don't understand," Eren continued, "and what our eastern kin forget with all your nonsense about freedom. The men of Dathomir know there is honor in holding. Aytell says they call us valuable breeders out east." He squared his shoulders. "In the west, we are _magic givers_."

"You are," Mara replied quickly, raising a hand. "I'm not meaning to take away from it -- or your customs. But there are many paths, Eren."

Eren's face had hardened, and with a tone of finality, he said, "Vesha would not want me to listen to this talk."

Mara stopped. "Yes. I'm so--"

Eren raised his chin. "A witch never apologizes to a man."

Mara smiled gently. "I'm not a witch."

"No. You are not." Eren went back to where he'd been sitting.

"Guess I overshot that," Mara muttered after a few beats.

Luke snaked an arm around her shoulders, still reeling himself. "Maybe if you'd had a lightsaber made from a rancor's tooth..."

Mara let out a sound between a groan and a chuckle. "Ah, but then there'd probably be stories about rancor-slaughtering Jai barbarians. Maybe it's for the best."

Luke smiled. "Good point. Although it's probably not anything you said at all," he lowered his voice even more, "there's been some...conflict. So maybe that..." He shrugged lightly.

Mara's eyebrows raised. "I figured as much. Worth a try though." She exhaled. "You think it's too late to go hike to the falls? Hearts and minds and all that." She sagged a bit against him, blaring her reluctance. 

The feeling was perfectly justified in Luke’s estimation. It'd been enough, even if she probably didn't feel that way. Better to let things simmer for a while than risk antagonism.

He slid a cajoling note into his voice. "Why not stay here with me and just pass the time?"

She leaned her head on his shoulder, and looked up lazily. "I work for a _very_ demanding superior, you see."

Luke clicked his tongue at her. "Horrible."

She nodded with a coy smile and drew just a bit closer as if in confidence. "The absolute worst."

"So...slack off," he whispered back.

Mara's fingers drifted along his jaw. "You think so?"

He nodded solemnly.

Mara laughed and shifted up to kiss him. 

\--

Aytell and Vesha returned together a good while later. Their faces were splotchy, Vesha's hair mussed enough to leave little doubt over whether she'd managed to join Vila or not. That in itself was not shocking at this point. No, what was striking the tension in the air between the three of them in evidence from the stiltedness of their greetings to Eren and his to them. Eren's own demeanor had changed from his previous aloofness, a contrite cast now coming to his eyes to his eyes. He and Aytell both busied themselves with getting the preparations for dinner underway while Vesha went to sit where Eren had been, tension in her posture as she watched her mates gather their tools. 

"That's too bad," Mara muttered under her breath watching the scene. "And here I was about to give Vesha a hard time for fucking in the woods."

Luke dropped his head, resting his forehead behind her shoulder. He knew from experience this kind of thing devolving into a tit for tat when Mara was fully habituated could end up in blistering embarrassment...for him. "Please don't."

She veered her head towards him, with a faint smirk, but it faded once she turned back to where Aytell and Eren were starting up the fire again.

Luke untangled himself from her and went to help. Before they were done, Vila returned to the campsite, taking in the group with a knowing look, but Vesha circumvented any commentary by asking about the Falls.

Luke wasn't paying much attention to their conversation, being directed by Aytell, but at some point, Mara came to sit near them, closer to the fire. By then the food was cooking and Vila was spinning an old story about a hidden village deep in the mountains, a paradise full of wonders, found by a wanderer during the time of the wild rancors. 

“He was made an offer by the village folk to stay in paradise or go back to his kin,” Vila recounted. “But if he left he could never return. This wanderer was clever and he told the village folk to wait. Not only would he return, but he would bring all his kin.” 

Vesha was shaking her head. Luke had the sense she, Eren, and Aytell had all heard this story, and there _was_ something about it seemed familiar the way all folk tales are. Vila smiled. “So he left and sought his kin and they all journeyed deep into the forest, encountering many dangers and many beauties, but they found no trace of the village.”

“He should have stayed,” Eren mumbled. “Foolish man.”

Vesha leaned against him, more at ease than she'd been when she'd come back. “He is called wanderer,” she told him. “It was not in his nature.”

Eren’s face tightened and he muttered something low enough Luke couldn’t hear. The next thing Luke knew he'd stood and walked off into the woods, leaving Vesha and everyone else stunned.

Vesha composed herself and stood up. “Seems that my mate needs tending.” She passed a hand over Aytell’s head. He gave her a nod.

“I’ve heard a few variations of this story,” Mara said conversationally. “Through my travels. Seems like human beings are always torn between the old and the new.”

“Remaining or leaving the clan to start another,” Vila added over the crackle of the fire. "It is a good story for now when travel isn't as dangerous as it once was. Our world grows."

Mara nodded. 

Vila sighed. “And given that, I suppose you’ll think this old crone afraid of your Jai ways if I don’t at least let you show me a Jai spell.”

Mara chuckled. “Not at all, Mother.” 

”I would not want you to tell all your Jai students and all your Jai witches,” she ignored Mara's statement, adopting an exaggerated wounded tone, “have all your kin laugh at old Mother Vila of Agama’s Cry. Too old to learn a simple Jai spell.”

Mara’s chuckle changed to a full laugh. “Oh no, Mother, we are far too busy showing our Jai men the proper spells to catch a witch.”

Aytell gasped and Mara quickly lifted a hand. “No,” she told him quickly. “I was joking. There are no Jai spells to catch a witch. We seek knowledge more than anything else.”

“More than a mate?” Vila’s eyebrows rose. "Knowledge doesn't make a warm hearth. It is not _knowledge_ that you are teeming with, Jai."

Mara turned back to her. "One doesn't preclude the other." She thought for a second. “And knowledge is something we can share.”

Vila groaned as she got to her feet. “Fine then, Jai. Show me your knowledge.”

Mara got to her feet. She lent Vila a hand as they went into the opposite side of the camp, far enough that Luke couldn't make out their conversation, save for an occasional cackle from Vila. Near he and Aytell the ululating sounds of some nightbird, the forest insects, and the crackle of the fire were louder.

Aytell's voice was hushed when he spoke. “You heard us at the river.” 

"I'm sorry." Luke met his eyes. "I didn’t mean to.”

Aytell stood up and came to sit by him. “Offworlders apologize too much. You were tasked to get the stones. It is no fault of yours you should see us quarrel.” He raised his eyes to the dancing fire. "It’s unseemly during rites such as this to have angry words.”

“Hopefully, whatever it is can soon be resolved.”

Aytell’s face shadowed. “What do the Jai men do at your wife’s school after they become Jai?”

“Most leave Dathomir, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Why?”

“You know why,” Luke said mildly.

“I wish to hear it from an offworlder.”

“Many leave because the traditional role of witch’s mate holds no appeal for them. They worked hard to hone their abilities, they have been taught to put those abilities in service of those who need them, but when they do try to help they are pushed away.”

Luke shook his head. “And that’s the problem. There are Jai witches, they practice like any other witch, but a male spellcaster? He can’t go through an awakening. He can’t become a warrior or a seer or a wind reader or a healer. Your laws won’t let him. So he becomes a Jai, a Jedi and goes to help elsewhere.”

“I would imagine that works to the Jai’s advantage,” Aytell said after a moment. “Your wife’s school. It belongs to Luke Skywalker, does it not? He’s their head spellcaster and he can amass all the men--”

Luke straightened up, giving a firm shake of his head. “No. We don’t _use_ them. We give them a way they can serve. Jedi are not warriors like your stories say, they are peacekeepers. Protectors.” He folded his hands, thinking of the current conflict, the way Jedi had been singled out, feeling that old anxiety uncurl, and willfully drew his thoughts away. “And a few do decide stay here. We respect that choice too.”

“For what?” Aytell surprised him by asking.

Luke met his eyes curiously. It seemed obvious enough to him. “For love.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to another installment of Other People's Problems, starring Luke and Mara. For an instant, I thought I could squash everything into one part after this one like the kind of suitcase you sit on to close, and end up paying extra for at the airport. 
> 
> Then the instant passed.

Vesha came back shortly with Eren in tow, but the tension between the three stayed undiminished. Eren looked no worse after their return, but he looked no better either, still sullen and morose. Vesha's sense in turn, felt on edge. Aytell, as usual, was the hardest to read, he seemed calm, maybe a little concerned as he went over to them.

Was the current conflict over Vesha’s preference for Aytell? That seemed clear now, as much as she’d tried to hide it by favoring Eren at first. If he and Mara could see it, it would be more than obvious to Eren, and made of all of it a heartbreaking situation. 

Vila and Mara returned. In his talk with Aytell, he'd forgotten that Mara had gone with the seer to show her a Jedi technique.

"How'd it go?" he asked her as Mara went for the water canteen. Vila had gone towards her things.

"Not bad, actually. Same visualization issues, but she eventually got the hang of it. Didn't like it much though." She flashed him a lopsided smile. That surprised neither of them. The more experienced a witch was, the less likely she was to take to their particular approach, even if it was actually easier for an experienced witch to master. "What about you? Bored? I think Vila should call for a start to the evening’s rite soon."

He drifted a look to Vila, something told him, there was still something to go yet, but it was the sort of ambiguous feeling he was loathe to pin down. Turning back to Mara, he shook his head. "Not bored. Aytell asked me about the academy." 

Mara's eyebrows went up and she turned her head in Aytell's direction. "He wouldn't strike me as the kind to be interested, but I've never met anyone from the west. It's been a while, maybe I can't read things the way I used to."

"Yeah," Luke murmured. "I don't know either. He could have just been making conversation. I saw him argue with Eren, so that's what he'd brought up."

"Ah, right." Her eyes clouded. "Aytell's the favorite."

Luke nodded. "Took me a while to figure out."

Mara scoffed. "Really? The strategic age difference didn't tip you off?" 

He looked at her oddly, remembering what Tenos had told him about arranging matches -- older boys with much younger girls, implicitly under the watchful eye of the girl's mother. _A wise man can make of a girl a woman he can find happiness with,_ he'd said. 

"You believe that works?"

"That if you give a young girl an companion, who just so happens to be told that _his_ well-being relies on _her_ happiness and well-being, and he is trained to cater to her, while she's trained to bear the burden of societal expectations in its entirety, it won't, more likely than not, lead to a type of codependency?"

He sent her a needling smile. "You could have just said 'no'. Or would that be a 'yes'?" 

"Skywalker," she growled, but continued, "And if that kind of relationship is less than ideal, bringing a third person..."

Luke let out a sigh. "The outsider."

"Worse. The plaything." She made an exasperated sound. "Bad all around." Her expression softened. "That's Eren's baby Vesha's carrying, you said?"

Luke nodded.

She passed a hand through her hair. "Just makes everything worse," she muttered.

”I don’t think they see Eren as a plaything,” Luke offered. Vesha could have easily left him to his moodiness, and she seemed affected by his unhappiness. She _and_ Aytell were.

Mara glanced at their direction. “Maybe so, but no one wants to be loved second best.” 

Opposite them, Aytell was talking to Eren, whose expression was aloof. Vesha had turned to Vila's direction. The seer was a few paces away calmly looking to the fire.

“You know about Treyu, and about Oritha too, right, Mother?” Vesha called to Vila

Vila nodded. "Oritha. She was forsaken," she said cautiously. "But rejoined the clan?"

“Yes. There is more. Our clan has always had many witches gifted in earth reading.” She looked over at Mara, beginning her tale. “Just as Singing Mountain is known for its wind readers and the Northern Lakes are known for its water readers. Of these land witches, Treyu was the most powerful. Obviously, Oritha would succeed her.” Vesha's gaze moved to the fire. "Except that she was...difficult. They said perhaps the evil of the women Treyu killed had touched her. Perhaps you Jai know how evil comes to lodge in a heart.”

Luke frowned at the darker direction, feeling Mara stiffen a little beside him. Beside Vesha, Aytell's own gaze had shifted elsewhere and Eren was looking down at the stones by his feet.

“Treyu and our seer sensed this evil in her daughter. She had been found to bend rancors to her will, but our council hoped she would mend her ways. They thought a mate would teach her kindness, but he suffered under her rages. Eventually, they sent her away. All seemed to be well for a time after she returned. Oritha had a daughter now to guide, her mate no longer bore the marks of her temper. Treyu and the seer sensed restlessness in her, but they knew night and day were a question of harmony. Daylight was in her daughter’s face, they said. Up to this part you know?”

Vila stared at Vesha, the cast of her gaze scrutinizing, and nodded slowly. Luke felt a cold tendril of dread snake through him. It was obvious where her story was going. That was not the question that took shape in his mind. Rather, he wondered why Vesha would feel the need to share this now. 

“By then there were rumors of a powerful nightwitch in the east, one permitted to roam as she pleased." Gethzerion, he knew. "It was alarming to Treyu who waited impatiently for news that the witch had met Allya’s law. None came.” Vesha closed her eyes. A few instants passed in silence.

“And then one night they felt great anguish," she continued in that same soft tone. Luke's chill deepened. "Oritha had left with her child. Her mate had tried to stop her. They found him dead in her dwelling. He’d written two sigils on the ground: One for east. One for night. So Treyu did what she’d done before. She gathered the sisters and they went into the pass, eventually finding Oritha and her child. Bade her to come back.” For an instant a shadow of pain broke through Vesha's face. “But Oritha knew coming back meant losing her child and being forsaken again. She attacked the sisters, killing many of them, and still Treyu’s might was stronger. Desperate, even as Treyu called on her to leave the night, she clung to it more, took her own child in her arms.”

It was as bad as he'd thought, feeling Mara's revulsion beside him. Where Vesha had come had not appeared to have been overrun with Nightsisters the way the areas around Singing Mountain had been, but they seemed to have had their own bloody history regardless...and it seemed uncomfortably familiar. How could ties of blood and kinship fracture like that? He thought of his father. In the end, he'd never believed he'd die at his hand. That he might die, yes. That it'd be his father willingly doing it? No. 

“A mother gives the breath of life, says the _Book of Law_. Treyu took her daughter’s away. For me.” Vesha met Vila’s eyes. "This is why you don't know the end of it, Mother." She looked away and her voice grew husky. “Grandmother doesn't like the rest of this story told. She prefers the story end when Oritha comes back and lives peacefully.”

Vila’s eyes were saddened. “I see why.”

And he could, too. He could barely imagine the grief. Luke cast his gaze over at Vesha. Was it her mother's fate she feared? Her grandmother's? Both? Beside him Mara sighed softly, and he felt a thrum of pity from the bond.

Her voice gathered strength, accusatory now. “Your eastern lands hesitated in stopping your nightwitch and suffered greatly. If the daughter joined Gethzerion, Dathomir might be still be in shadow.” She raised her head, eyes roving over Mara. "Maybe your Jai would have been able to to rid of them. But maybe not -- the story of how he rid us of her and her foul clan is different every place it is told." She inched forward, exuding bitterness. "But do you think of squeezing the life out your child as the cost of magic, Jai?" Mara was unmoved though Luke sensed her recoil. “Because we-- ”

“Stop that," he found himself saying, because it was clear enough what she'd wanted to accomplish. "Tragedy is not a club to strike with.”

Vesha straightened up in shock that he’d spoken, then her features drew in a scowl. “Are you scolding me? Men have been struck --”

”I know you're not threatening my mate," Mara spoke up without moving from her spot.

Vesha jerked back. “He has--”

"I don't care. Apologize.” Mara leveled a hard stare her way.

Idly, Luke reflected he hadn't heard that tone from her in a long time.

“I will no--” Vesha’s face contorted in outrage.

She didn't need to raise her voice for emphasis. “Now.”

“I owe no--”

“A witch speaks,” Vila intervened, tapping her walking stick on the ground. “You mar the peace with threats in a sacred rite. You will apologize.”

“The gall of it,” Vesha seethed, “an offworlder Jai--”

And Mara simply raised her wrist, the one with the leather witch’s strap. Vesha broke off, waves of anger pouring off her.

She opened her mouth again. “That --”

“Watch yourself, young one,” Vila warned. “I trust even in the west, it is known what an affront it is to question a council’s authority.” She softened her tone, shaking her head. “You will not find what you seek in strife,” she chided. “The second ritual should have excised what lodges in your heart." Vila sighed. "How long has your clan been without a seer?”

It took Vesha a while to answer and she did without looking up. “Since my mother killed her and her daughter.”

“It is not good for a clan to be without a seer for so long. Why did Treyu not ask? Surely there's a clan near the Western reaches that can send one to train a clan daughter."

Vesha didn't answer.

Vila scowled. "Is she so arrogant to think the Western Flatirons clan is the first to know sorrow and shame?" She made a sound of disapproval. "Go on, apologize. Our Jai sister’s mate might have spoken out of turn, but he is not mistaken, and even if he had been, you have no right with which to speak of harsh reprisal, and to an awakened teeming witch, no less. He is her cherished mate, surely you can understand, teeming as you are, your misstep. West or east you are a daughter of Allya, are you not?”

Vesha seemed to wilt.

“Well?”

She lifted her head and looked over to Mara. “Apologies, sister.”

Mara nodded.

Vila stood up. “Come chant, Vesha of the Western Flatirons, you are not yet ready for the final rite.” She went over to Vesha and put a hand on her head. “Better to know what lies in disharmony than sing off key. Your mates can come keep you company.”

Vesha shook her head but stood. “This doesn’t concern them.”

"Suit yourself." Vila nodded, waiting as she stood. They both walked out into the forest.

\--

Luke rubbed his forehead with a soft exhalation after they’d gone from view. “I shouldn't have said anything,” he muttered.

Mara nudged him with her shoulder. “Hormones are really something, aren’t they?”

He smiled a little at her joke. “It just seemed like a low blow out of nowhere.” He frowned. "You mentioned being thin-skinned when we got here.” 

Mara huffed a laugh. “Never thought I’d see the day.” She slid the hand up to muss his hair. “Luke Skywalker, prickly. _I’m_ the prickly one, farmboy.”

He chuckled, but soon quieted. “I didn’t want her putting that in your head. She’d said it to hurt.”

"Yeah." She slid her hand to his back. “We'll probably hear worse once news gets out.”

“I know.” He wasn't looking forward to that. What had circulated about Mara in the press when they'd married had been bad enough. He'd been used to his name being dragged through the mud, it came with the mantle, but until then, Mara had always steadfastedly avoided any and all media glare. Regardless of how she dismissed it, it hadn't been fair. It'd be less so for a _child_. Something else he'd have to ask his sister about...

"I thought you'd tell her about your father, actually," Mara was saying.

"She wouldn't have listened. Not to me."

Luke sensed Mara agree. "I have a feeling they know very little about us where she comes from."

"They know about the _Chu'unthor_."

"And she got that wrong. Thinking that we're keeping things from them-- " 

The crunching of footsteps made them look up. Aytell had stood up and was gesturing for Eren to come with him towards them. He crouched by Mara, biting his lip. 

“If I may...”

Mara drew her hand from Luke's back and rested it on her knee. “Of course you may.”

“I hoped you...I hoped you wouldn't bear her ill will. It is Mother Treyu’s spear that Vesha must hold once she awakens as a witch. She’s...troubled by it.”

Eren hissed. “Aytell!”

Mara nodded. “It's fine.”

“The past weighs--”

“We do not owe them explanations,” Eren insisted. “This is none of our concern!”

Aytell turned his head to the side. “No, but it’s foolish to stand back and let antipathy spread in a time such as this. There's been enough--”

“There is no antipathy," Mara assured him. "It’s just...” She glanced over at Luke.

“We're a bit sensitive," he supplied, trying not to wince.

"Exchanges between witches remain between them," Aytell told Luke, an informative air about it. "Being offworlders, you might have other ways --"

Mara's eyes flickered. “And yet here you are," she said gently. "Intervening on Vesha’s behalf. Again."

Aytell dropped his gaze. 

"And we don’t have a set...way.” She stopped. “That’s why we’re here. The old Jai didn’t pass on the gift.”

“How could there be Jai without passing the gift?” Eren blurted out. He'd scuffled closer.

“They’d find children -- younglings from the galaxy over with the gift," she explained, "and they’d promise their families and caretakers to protect them and teach them how to use their talents.”

Aytell nodded. “Like when a talented girl is born to a commoner woman and her commoner mate. A great honor.”

“But Jai never wanted a child to hold?” Eren asked.

“Some did, I suppose,” Mara answered. “Others didn’t. But on the whole they thought one’s own children would distract from their call to serve. They were also wary of the connections that might result in children. It was too big a risk for them. That was the established wisdom in their time.”

All of them grew silent. They must be thinking of Vesha’s grandmother. It still made Luke’s stomach twist. 

“The old Jai were wiped out before Gethzerion’s time," Mara continued. "Their teachings scattered in pieces throughout the galaxy. The Jai that came to Dathomir and battled Gethzerion with the Singing Mountain clan was looking for those teachings.”

Eren asked, “So he did not know that the old Jai didn't have their own?”

Mara shook her head. “Not in so many words, but it was...rumored.”

A curious look came over Eren’s face as he looked down to her belly. “But he knows now? You’re going against --.”

Luke couldn’t help a laugh. “He knows,” he said to Eren’s look. 

“He would have to,” Aytell told Eren and turned back to Mara. “You’re a high-ranking Jai, a teacher.”

She nodded with a grin. “We've gone against that established wisdom." The smile faded. "But what happened to Treyu’s daughter -- we’ve seen it too in our own way.” She leaned forward towards Aytell. “You don’t need to ask me to understand for her, Aytell.” She shifted back. "I do. But I can't allow her to disrespect my mate, the same way you can't allow her to make tensions between us."

Eren gasped as Aytell raised his hands, speaking quickly, "Not 'allow', we do not speak of women like--"

Mara tilted her head. "You act of your own free will, right? Towards an aim for her but not from her. Without her asking you to."

Aytell blinked.

She smiled. "You protect her. In your own way."

He shook his head. "No."

"This isn't--" Eren tried to interrupt, but stopped when Mara raised a hand.

"We Jai seek knowledge more than anything else," she said. "Remember? And the knowledge we most value is the knowledge of our own hearts. It's not as easy as _being told_ what you are." She shook her head. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to protect her."

Aytell had narrowed his eyes. "It is not what men do."

"No, but it is what _you_ are moved to do. For Vesha. Is that wrong? Here? Now?" She shook her head again. "You wouldn't be here if it were. You value peace and harmony more than what you've been told men should do." She lifted her hands in a warding gesture. "You can dismiss me if I'm wrong."

His brows drew together. "It doesn't matter."

"It might not," Mara conceded. "Except it makes me think that sometimes our heart tells us to go against established wisdom, and we can ignore it, and pretend to be happy, but something will always be missing. And sometimes the heart is crafty and will come up with excuses to break the rules, so that we don't have to recognize that the established wisdom has failed us. But sometimes we have to face that the established wisdom doesn't work, and find our own path," she lowered her hand to her belly, "acknowledge the risks and deal with them with clear eyes." Almost as an afterthought, she added, "My son's grandfather was the one who wiped out the Jai." 

Eren and Aytell gaped and Luke tried not to smile at their aghast expressions.

She looked at both of them. "If the established wisdom doesn't work, it doesn't work. Deep down you know. You just have to _recognize_ it."

Still a bit shocked, Aytell nodded. He rose to his feet, gesturing to Eren, who also looked equally dazed, to go back with him.

“I’d forgotten how it sounds to someone who’s never heard," Luke commented after the men gone back to their spots. Kirana Ti included it in the histories taught just as it was included in the main praxeum, but he seemed to recall she'd also invited Tionne to play it in ballad form for one of the Harvest festivities around a year ago. That has been around the time when Mara had first shown symptons of her illness. He didn't remember now how it'd been recieved. He might not have asked.

"It might distract them," Mara mused.

“That's not up to us anymore, is it?" Luke slid an arm around her shoulders and she leaned against him with a sigh, “Don’t overthink it.”

“Some of us can’t just blab out the right thing,” she grumbled.

He snorted and gestured before them to the fire.

Mara gave him one of her patented sharp smiles. “I thought this worked out well. Vesha was looking to get checked.”

“Maybe from your --”

“Oh no, don’t say it -- _don't_ \--”

“Point of view,” Luke finished smugly. “'The heart is crafty',” he echoed, not giving her a chance to do more than shoot him a put upon look. “That's Altiss, no?”

“Mm, maybe," she said with an appreciative grunt and a coy eyebrow raise. "He’s _such_ a heretic.”

"Now you’re just trying to make me jealous." 

“It’s not Yoda, I'll tell you that.”

Luke grinned. “His earlier stuff is very readable.”

She made a face. “No, it's not.”

"Even funny sometimes."

Mara pulled away scrunching her brows at him. "According to who? You? Please."

"No, plenty of --"

They were interrupted by Vila and Vesha's return. She walked slowly after Vila, her head lowered, exhaustion seeping from her. She went past Vila and over to her mates who drew to her hesitantly. Vila stared after her. Apparently satisfied she came over to Luke and Mara. They both stood.

“Vesha shall complete the rite tomorrow morning, but you can proceed tonight,” she said to Mara. “Pack your things for the night. Go back to the creek and follow it down to a rock ledge just over where there is a boulder marked with a star.”

Mara nodded in acknowledgement. “A boulder marked with a star?”

“Carved into it.” She paused and lowered her voice. “It has been used as a guide since my great great grandmother’s time, even longer, perhaps. Seek it and you will find it.”

“All right.” Mara turned to get her bag. Vila stopped her with a hand on her forearm.

“Know you are calling magic enough for you and your child, you must channel it accordingly," she cautioned. "Chanting before and after the casting is absolutely required, as is the rest period, both between the final portion, and after the spell is complete. Your mate is to return here for the final rest period in the morning. One last thing -- it is customary to allow your mate to ask for a gift for their bearing witness.” Her eyes slid over Luke. “This will close the rite, so it’s something to be considered from this point.”

Vila smiled and withdrew her hand. “Go, Jai, make your heart manifest.”

\--

The path down to the rock ledge wasn’t very far from where they had set up the main camp, and the markings on the rock easy to find from the creek, even by glowrod. The area was under a particularly long overhang, half the size of their chamber back at the inn. Luke set aside their things and started on the fire as Mara settled in her meditation.

Mara repeated the verses low enough that he couldn’t catch them, but the content for this as well as any mantra was less the point than the means. After a while her voice became a soft background noise. What he felt instead was the pull of the Force. 

There was the river stone and the disc to put through the usual ritual cleansing before Mara could use it, and kindling to pick up to keep the fire going for later, he reminded himself. They’d had dinner, but Mara might want something to eat later, as well. Luke left her to the meditation and turned his attention to the stone, the metal disc, and the rest of his tasks.

Outside at the edge of the forest, one of the moons was fully visible while the other was a crescent, stars scattered around. The smell of leaves and trees clung to the evening air and the intermittent animal calls ululated in the distance. Amid all that life, war seemed inconceivably far. Luke recalled before too, even when the Nightsisters had torn through the land, there’d been moments looking out to the wilderness where he’d felt the same way, where it’d seemed difficult to believe that darkness could be so close at hand. 

His thoughts drifted to the story Vesha had told, a knot tightening in his chest. It was a human impulse to want to know why, to make of tragedy a cautionary tale. He felt it now, in wanting to think Treyu’s hand had been too fast, that maybe she’d been too hard, too afraid to reach out, blinded as she was to the monstrosity before her. Something must have told her in that one moment that she must act. But fundamentally he didn’t know what brought her and her daughter to that point, he couldn’t explain it, and all his reasoning, all feelings were grounded in what he’d lived. 

And maybe that was a universe apart.

But he thought of Allya. She’d been left here, abandoned by the only family she’d known. As he'd thought before, it would have been easy to have let herself be consumed by resentment and vent it out here. And still, she hadn’t. The land is life giving, Mara had quoted. Whatever the darkness took the land can bring back. There was that too. 

That was not so far.

Luke felt Mara’s presence once she pulled herself out of her meditation, so luminous she _burst_ into his awareness. A few minutes later, he heard her footsteps. Her arms wrapped around his waist from behind.

“You thought about what you want?” she asked. “The gift Vila mentioned.”

“Still thinking.” 

“Don’t overdo it.”

He chuckled softly and slid his hand over hers. "We have to keep this part of the ritual?"

"You don't want anything?" she said it casually, but he spied some disappointment underneath. Mara let out a laugh that sounded a bit forced. "I know. Nothing either of us can grant."

Luke slid from her hold gently so he could look at her.

She was smiling sadly, and he brought his arms around her, and he could keep quiet, but he didn't _have_ to. He never had to. Not with her. 

"I have everything already," he allowed the petulance, "I just want to keep all of it."

She laughed. A real laugh this time, and he felt her fingers along his nape. It was more than enough.

“I’m hungry.” He shifted to look at her and was about to suggest she eat when she continued, “But I still have one session of the meditation before I go into the casting. I'll snack after.”

“That’s the full night, isn’t it?” He thought back. “Shorter than first assembling a lightsaber at least.”

She nodded and rubbed her forehead. “Yeah.”

He grinned. “But no naps or anything for old people like us?”

She poked him. “You heard her. One break in between. As long as a candle takes to burn down. Sleep after it's done.”

“How long is the candle again?”

She lifted her pinkie. “About half of this. The estimate is about an hour give or take.” Mara raised her head. “The night is so nice it’s a pity to have to go inside.” 

He put his arms around her and they stayed like that for a few more minutes in the lulling nightscape of the forest before Mara slid away, her hand latching to his wrist to pull him back along the path with her.

Inside Luke went into his meditation session, while Mara did her second round. When he came out of it, Mara was no longer beside him. The bowls had been arranged differently so he'd assumed she'd eaten and continued on. He felt her not too far though he couldn't hear her. She must have moved on to the first part, a protection spell, a more complex meditation that needed to be done outside.

He readied the bedroll, checked on the fire, and made sure the rest of what she'd need was on hand. She came back in when he was done and he went outside to wash up for bed. 

The Force was thick all around them as he came back in, a sign she’d started the casting portion. He felt it tangibly, like roiling waves as Mara sat before the fire. She was dressed now in her sleeping robe, her hands moving fluidly through the focusing gestures over and over as she chanted, eyes open but seeing otherwise. The rocks, the metal setting, her own hair, begining to float about her.

Luke couldn’t discern the specific technique, but he didn’t need to, he felt the movement of the Force channeled toward the stones, and all of it took his breath away. He knew the Force of course, its lifegiving flow, and what he witnessed here was that, but of a different accent as it passed _through_ the sound of Mara’s voice, the precise, yet fluid movements of her hands. 

Something Teneniel had said long ago came back to him.

 _You don’t have to sing_ , he'd told her once. _The Force doesn't require it._

And like Eren, she'd replied: _But doesn’t it make you _want_ to? Don’t you want to call it with your own voice? And when it fills you up, don’t you want to sing and move to it so it can fill you up more?_

He hadn’t understood, then. He did now, if intellectually. By circumstance this wouldn’t be natural for him -- for Jedi the body was a secondary expression, but it mustn’t have always been that way. Something might have gotten lost over the ages, for human beings, at least.

Because the fact remained that humans were more than their intellect, more than even their emotions, they were also their senses at the body boundary. Allya had somehow rediscovered that -- ways to commune with the Force that were intimately grounded in felt experience, the smell of a campfire and herbs, the taste of food shared with one's clan, the smooth or rough texture of wood and stone, the the vibration of viol strings, the turns of a dance. And she’d set out not just to _feel_ the Force through these, but to _call to it_ in those ways too. In doing so, she'd made the Force more than primal as far as humans were concerned, she'd made it _magical_.

And while he'd maybe come to the Force too late to feel it quite that way, _Mara_ hadn't. For all the ways her first training had stunted her, it had also left the seeds of something else, an affinity for materiality and movement that had made her apt for this Force practice.

Luke changed into his own sleeping robe and went into his bedroll, observing as the two floating stones slowly, incrementally gathered. Their edges began to shimmer bit by bit until they started to glow red then yellow, the power that brought them together channeled through Mara’s voice, the dip and weave of her hands. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead at the exertion, the Force building and surging until with a snap the fire behind the stones sparked and rose.

Where there’d been edges there was now one continuous stone.

Mara’s hands stilled and she quieted, only breathing deeply for a few seconds. Then she started the verses again and he felt her coaxing the ripples of the Force into smoothness. This was what she referred to as the clean up phase, a cool down to bring the energy she was accessing gradually back down to a normal level. She would do this for a while, and then start all over again to fuse the stones into the disc, take the break required, and finish by smoothing out the amulet. Luke closed his eyes and lost time, floating off to the gentle sound of her voice, the course of the Force all around them, growing tranquil.

He woke some time later because he was a little chilly and he was about to pull the blanket over him, but he felt her near instead, and reached out unthinkingly.

Mara came, solid weight, settling close, saying something, the sound of voice mellifluous but undifferentiated, her breath wispy and warm along his neck. He blinked open his eyes blearily, finding firelight playing on her hair, washing her skin in an amber glow, dusky diffuse shapes down her back. She lifted her head, eyes hazy and soft as she said something else that he still couldn't parse, though he could have, maybe, if he tried. It didn’t seem important, not as important as the fit of her against him, familiar past the taste and feel of her skin to the ember of her presence. He closed his eyes, his awareness drawn beyond this -- the substance of her -- to the edge between them, the bounds of the space she filled within him. The shores of a lake holding a starry sky. Holding a whole universe come down. Breadth to depth.

Because the Force gathered and surged _here_ , where it was no longer him, nor her, but _both_ of them, and thus, _neither_. And the Force flowed through all things, but it was rising, peaking, and breaking _here_ in this impossible space of _no_ thing and _every_ thing at once, over and over and over.

When he came back to himself, her name was on his lips, his arms holding tightly onto her as she gasped and trembled against him.

\--

Wakefulness filtered to Mara’s chanting, the slow, measured tones of the cool down.

His head felt a little fuzzy. Luke rubbed at his face groggily. Between the forest and all the required meditation, he'd known that Mara was to channel a lot of the Force -- confirmed by Vila's warning -- but it'd been enough to pull him under too through the bond, going by how he felt. That dream had been something else. Luke sat up and stretched. Vila really hadn’t been kidding.

He broke off the thought finding himself naked, and he blinked, scanning for his robe. Luke found it under him, rumpled since he'd slept on it. That was a little odd. The candle Mara had described was on a jar a few feet away from the bedroll, fully burnt out. In the next moment he'd brought a hand over his mouth to avoid letting out a laugh and disturbing Mara. Not a dream at all. 

While nothing quite like this had happened to them before, he’d recognized it because this haziness now felt like a much, _much_ milder version of what Luke remembered as a side effect of pulling too much of the Force too fast, causing an energy overload. The ensuing disorientation upon waking up from the inevitable crash was often accompanied with concussions, broken bones, non-negligible scrapes, and -- once he remembered who he was and what he'd been doing -- the blinding stab of panic that everyone around him would be gone anyway.

Thankfully, it’d been several years, and now that he was fully awake, he felt the opposite from that. He was willing to bet that the way Mara had been drawing from the Force, she'd ended up with an energy surpluss she'd been moved to burn off through means other than the usual cool down before continuing to the final part. She'd modified the ritual again, and he suspected it hadn't been the bond that had pulled him under at all. He’d ask her about it later.

Still amused, Luke searched silently for the clothing he'd packed and left the rock shelter for his morning routine. Mara was finished by the time he came back and was on her side in her bedroll, sleeping soundly. He spied the shape of the metal disc under a washcloth, curious, but he'd let Mara show it to him when she was ready. He made breakfast, setting hers aside for when she woke up.

He ran a final check of their lodgings, and went up to her, passing a soft hand along her forehead, a gentle brush with the Force. The small reverberation of her sleepy response brought a smile to his face as he grabbed the bag of supplies and headed back to the main camp.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cracks knuckles*
> 
> And here we are back with yet another scintillating edition of Other People's Problems, starring Luke and Mara. Thank you all for your patience. We are almost there (one more probably super long part!) and then we can go back to Happyfun Spanktime.

When Luke arrived at the main camp, only Eren was having breakfast by the fire. He brightened once he saw Luke.

“Mother Vila went to do her chanting and Aytell is with Vesha for the last rite,” he announced, gesturing to some bowls. “They left before sunup. Aytell should be back soon. Did the rite go well?”

Luke nodded, taking one and ladling himself some gruel. “I think so.”

Eren’s easy demeanor faded and he sighed. “I was...thinking about...the river.” He stared off. Luke wasn’t sure what he was referring to. Eren turned to him. “You saw me trade words with Aytell.”

“I--”

“Aytell was right. I acted poorly then, and I acted poorly that night too.” He looked down to his own bowl. “Vesha...she...she has reason to feel like she does, even if it is a wrong to strike out at your Jai. There is no such reason for me to disrespect the rites. I am sorry you witnessed it.”

It didn’t seem all that different to Luke and it occurred to him that these outbursts had their own role, perhaps they too were part of what the rite was about. Luke filed that to consider later. “You don’t need to be sorry," he told Eren. "If it makes you feel better, I’ve already forgotten.”

Eren nodded dully. “I felt her, the girl Vesha carries, this morning,” he said after a moment. “A child shouldn’t come into a hearth with strife. Especially a girl with a strong gift. She will feel it and it will hurt her.” His eyes flickered back to Luke. “Your Jai boy. He will be strong too.”

“We’ll be happy as long as he’s safe." Luke stirred the gruel, reluctant to follow that particular thread again.

Eren stayed quiet for a moment. “That’s why me and my brother were sent west.”

Luke lifted his eyes towards him. “You weren’t born west?”

“We were born near Thornbush Forest. It doesn’t exist anymore, from what we hear.”

“Nightsisters?”

“No, the witches there joined up with those of the Singing Mountain clan a little before the nightwitch there started assembling her clan.” Eren turned the utensil in his hands.

Luke felt relieved that it wasn't another horror, at least. “And your brother? He is...”

“A great bore.” Eren grinned. “He was taken in by a friend of Mother Treyu’s. Both of us were, but he was older, so he was given to one of Vesha’s cousins as her second husband.” 

“Like Aytell?” 

Eren shook his head. “Aytell loves Vesha. First, second doesn’t matter. Citham does not dislike Rathya.” Eren’s expression betrayed a bit of distaste. “But he likes her children more though he has sired none on her.” He shrugged.

The intricacies of the dowry system still eluded Luke. “So you were...matched from Vesha’s cousin’s house?”

“Witches have at least two mates. Also Aytell’s gift...” Eren looked down, as if it were somehow shameful to broach. “His mother was a poultice maker.” He lifted his head. “My mother was a warrior. That's why Vesha chose me.”

Luke thought of Tenos again. “And every boy dreams of belonging to a powerful witch?”

“A strong witch. If my mother had been stronger,” he said matter of factly. “There’d have been no need to send us elsewhere.” He went for some more fruit in a nearby bowl. “But Vesha is strong. Her girl will know her, know the west. My gift will give that to her. She will know it came from me and love me for it. That is the way of things here.” 

Luke frowned. “Your daughter would love you regardless.”

“Yes, but...” Eren stopped as if searching for a way to explain. “Aytell’s purpose is to tend to Vesha. My purpose lies with the child.”

Luke’s unease continued. He tried to think of a soft way to phrase it. “Maybe it would be best to just think of how you will feel as a father.” 

Eren’s eyes narrowed. “To think that I will love her and not that she will love me?” 

“No, not to _bind_ yourself to it.”

“I don’t understand.” An accusing undertone came into his words.“You’re saying she won’t love me.” 

“Nothing like that,” Luke said quickly. “Just that love shouldn’t come with expectations or conditions.” 

Eren’s face shuttered. “Perhaps it’s different for Jai. My brother has Rathya’s girls. They love him best and they are all he needs.” 

“And it will be the same for you?”

Eren didn't reply, and Luke thought he might have pushed too far. Eren turned away, some turmoil surfacing, longing...

That was it precisely -- longing for _what_? To be _Vesha’s_ favorite? To not be second?

Luke hazarded more. “Is that what _you_ want?”

Eren made a soft sound and Luke realized it was a half laugh. “And you were blending so well, offworlder. _Children_ want things.”

“Not necessarily. You are being offered something after the rite is done, right?”

Eren tilted his head and Luke almost winced. Perhaps Vesha had only offered the gift to Aytell, but a pensive expression came over Eren's face. 

“Yes,” he admitted. Luke was about to continue, but Eren quickly added, “I thought of asking to name Vesha’s girl.”

Luke hadn’t wanted the conversation to turn away in that direction. He’d only meant it as an example, but he supposed he should let it go where it would. 

“You have a name in mind?”

Eren shook his head. “I must think of one. There is still time.” He smiled. “First husband to a strong witch with lands. Father to her firstborn. Here such a thing is to be envied.” 

Luke went back to his breakfast. When Mara had spoken about the lies one could tell oneself, she’d spoken to Eren too. His expression as he looked at the kyber crystals from Mara’s lightsaber had been awed, his eyes followed the witches whenever they chanted and cast spells. 

Was it a genuine interest for him? Or was he fascinated because he’d been told that his talent made him special, even as he was barred from it?

Was there even a difference here?

Luke was still mulling this over when Aytell emerged from the forest, calling out a greeting.

Eren offered him a bowl when he came to sit. “Vesha completed the amulet?”

Aytell nodded. His eyes darted quickly towards Luke, before returning to Eren. “You should have joined us. Vesha said--”

“I was fine here. I was with her for the others. It was fair.”

Aytell looked as if he were going to say something else, but thought better of it. He met Luke's eyes.

“It went well for you?” Luke nodded, and Aytell went on. “Sau," he spoke of their rancor, "said they might hunt and spend the night on the Low Paths, we should call them up for when we have need for them.” 

Aytell took on a cautious expression. “What your wife said about her father--”

Luke put his bowl down. “Not hers.”

Aytell drew back slightly. “ _Your_ father?”

He nodded. 

"See." Eren made a disapproving noise. “Evil is within men.”

“Not anymore than anyone else," Luke interjected, "women, or any other being that can access what you call the magic." He raised his open palm. "You have Nightsisters.”

“Yes, but nightwitches,” Aytell said carefully, “would have never grown in strength had it not been for Singing Mountain’s weakness. They violated the ways and Singing Mountain tolerated them, despite knowing that evil is to be cut at the root. So it is with this too. The temptation of magic for evil deeds is too great for men. Better that we not touch it at all.” He reached for an utensil. “I have thought about your school, and your Jai do well to serve elsewhere. There is wisdom in the old ways.”

Luke scowled at the specious reasoning. “You’re speaking of destiny. My father did...horrific things with his talent, but he wasn't _destined_ to that for being a man. He chose them, and regretted them in the end when he turned from darkness. That too is possible -- sometimes I think your west forgets with all that strict talk.”

Aytell looked up from his bowl. “And the cost of error? The nightwitch allowed to cleave through the east?”

“I can’t speak for Singing Mountain, but my father put his life down for mine. The larger lesson of _his_ life is that if _he_ can return, evil isn’t inescapable. Not destiny. It’s a _choice_ \-- and one that can be repudiated at any moment.”

Aytell and Eren looked at each other. 

Aytell put his bowl down. “If magic hadn't been left in twisted hands...if it had been cut at the root...” he trailed off. He shook his head firmly. "The dead do not choose."

That was a common enough response. Better for Anakin to have never touched the Force at all than to use it to cause as much suffering as he had after his fall. Luke went for a drink from his canteen. It was ultimately unconvincing logic, even without thinking of the good Anakin had accomplished before.

Would he have wanted his father to have never strayed? Without a doubt. Would this have meant depriving him of the ability to walk his own path? That seemed an even larger monstrosity. As long as beings were fallible that was not a responsibility they could take over any other. Luke considered broaching his father's enslavement but quickly turned from the thought. That would be too easily misunderstood. Subjection looked very different when it was exacted under the guise of protection, when it was bound up with attachments. He would do himself no favors by making connections neither Aytell nor Eren would care to understand. 

“Magic is the weapon," Luke finally told Aytell. "The desire to inflict suffering comes from the heart itself. You can take away the magic, but that won't take away whatever dark impulse lies within. And you can...destroy the being, but if you do it with the intent to punish them, to make an example out of them, you're only feeding a cycle of fear." Luke stopped, thoughts wandering to Treyu's daughter. "Depriving beings of choices only _seems_ to work -- in the long run it's only a matter of time before it fails, and to then rely on taking life as a _solution_ is no way to achieve balance -- or harmony as you call it.”

Aytell's jaw was set. Luke wondered if he were even following. “I would not wish that choice all the same. A witch’s burden is not one I would carry.”

“Neither would I,” Eren added.

“Which would be fine,” Luke retorted. “But it _isn’t_ a choice for you." 

Perhaps in being internalized as largely benevolent, he reflected, there wouldn't be violence to the degree witnessed with the Nightsisters or it would be rare -- but what of the men who felt dissatisfied with their role in Dathomir, who looked at that dissatisfaction as a personal failing, who could come to despair and loathe _themselves_ for not being happy with their lot as they were told they should be? How many had suffered this way? To say this was fine as long as the man in question hurt no one or hurt only himself was wrong.

"It’s a prohibition, dressed up with tradition," Luke went on. Maybe it was falling on deaf ears, but he didn't want to stay silent either. "It’s born out of fear, ultimately. That alone makes it wrong. But more than that, it's an imbalance.” Luke softened his tone. “And imbalances tend to correct themselves with time.”

\--

Luke let the matter drop after that, Aytell and Eren only too happy to let him. After they had finished breakfast, they hiked back to the boundary of the area where rancors were not permitted, the rockiness giving way to a more wooded part though the vegetation was sparse and rock-laden. 

They continued down a bit further, towards where the creek became a stream in a canyon, about as wide as four rancors arranged side by side, steep rocky slopes at either side. From there, they called to their mounts through the Force and waited on the banks of the stream.

Some time later, the ground shook with the rancors’ heavy footsteps as they approached from the canyon’s mouth. Sau, Vesha’s rancor, came into view first, followed by Vila’s Naye, with Osha bringing up the rear. Luke, Aytell, and Eren met the rancors midway through the valley, Luke sent out a brief greeting to Sau and Naye, but continued on toward Osha who had sat down by the stream. The rancor leaned forward, presenting the side of his head for petting with a friendly snuff, asking about Mara. 

"Sleeping," Luke told him and the rancor growled that it was good for mother and child to rest. Luke smiled and patted the rancor before inquiring about his time in the woods. Osha sent back some faint irritation in Sau’s direction. The younger female easily bored without her herd. She’d wanted to wander off too far by herself, something both Naye and Osha, as her elders and proxy herd for the duration of the trip, hadn’t permitted.

A few meters behind him, Luke overheard Aytell chiding the young rancor who had probably been expressing her own sullenness while splashing herself in the stream. Aytell left Eren to keep soothing the rancor, while he went over to Vila’s Naye, who had taken her own seat just a few steps behind them, hunching by the stream to wet her face.

Alarm rang through the Force suddenly, and Luke felt Osha tense. The rancor raised his head and drew himself to his feet a second later. A distant rumble broke through the calm of the canyon.

A feral rancor? Luke stared back at Aytell and Eren, reading their own alarm as Sau and Naye drew themselves up.

The pounding and shaking grew faster and more jarring and Luke's attention was drawn forward. A dark shadow came into view from where the rancors had come. The ground itself seemed to _explode_ as it entered the canyon.

Over Osha's side, Luke glimpsed a massive creature -- a full head taller than the rancors came into view, blocking out the light that poured from the canyon’s mouth.

Four-legged and horn headed, its head was otherwise flat and its snout u-shaped, with teeth visible from where Luke stood. Its dark green skin and squat, scaly tapering body resembled an enormous reptile, but one startlingly different from what Luke had seen in Dathomir.

“Drebbin!” Eren gasped behind him as the creature sprang forward, its feet splashing into the stream. “Back!” He called out a command, his urgency clear and loud through the Force.

Osha jumped back, extending a clawed thumb and forefinger to pick Luke up and deposit him a few meters behind him.

Luke heard Aytell yelled Eren’s name, but could only see Sau and Naye advancing as he lurched to his feet from where the rancor had plopped him. The drebbin faced Osha and stopped to hiss, showing rows of conical, serrated teeth.

Dathomiri rancors while sentient and intelligent, were still instinctively aggressive, especially to unfamiliar species, all the more so if the species in question were a perceived threat. Now that Osha had taken Luke out of immediate harm, he'd follow his instincts.

Osha drew himself up, spread his long arms, claws extended, and roared loud enough to hurt Luke’s ears. Behind him, Sau and Naye roared, the swell of aggression clear in them. 

“No!” Luke cried out as Osha lunged.

The drebbin opened its mouth to snarl, its tail lancing forward, as thick as a man’s torso, muscular, and _long_ , longer than Luke had seen initially -- to crack across Osha’s face like a whip, tossing the rancor down with a thunderous noise. Luke dashed forward to where the rancor had fallen, withdrawing his lightsaber. He thumbed it on and threw it up in an arc.

The tail lifted for another blow towards the downed rancor. 

With a Force directed slash, the blade cut through a third of the tail and looped to slap back into Luke’s hand. The creature’s tail landed beside Osha with a thump. Screeching, the drebbin took several steps back, mutilated tail whipping in fury as the rancor shot to his feet and roared again.

Beside them, closer to the canyon wall, Naye and Sau had converged in front of the drebbin several meters away. Or tried -- even without a third of its tail, the drebbin moved with shocking speed and agility for its size. It _jumped_ to Naye’s head, its weight pulling her down, then tossed itself off her back. Sau grabbed it, keeping her hold despite the drebbin's gargantuan size and its flailing, clawing limbs. 

Luke couldn’t make out much, especially once Sau turned and smashed the thrashing drebbin to the side of the canyon opposite Luke, rock and dirt bursting out in a cloud to sting his eyes, even as distant as he was. 

Osha raced to them, Luke sprinting behind him at full speed, taking a Force-assisted leap up to the rancor’s bent forearm. The rancor didn’t quite stop, but indicated he’d be faster without a human to be worried over.

Luke sent a clear push to _go_ and they reached the others in four steps-- in time to see the drebbin lash out with its claws at Sau and Naye. Even wounded and gushing brown blood, the tail was powerful enough to thud a hard blow at Sau, throwing her back, half of her colliding with Naye. The older sow was bleeding profusely from the ridge in her back. Her backwards stumble with a nearby boulder sent both rancors careening until they fell. Luke noted with a burst of trepidation that only Naye got up.

But he had no time for anything but to sense that the rancor was alive before Osha lunged forward. Luke jumped.

The drebbin wasn’t where it’d been. Its tail had come into play again to balance the creature as it evaded the rancor’s longer arms. Luke landed on the waving tail, ground himself through the Force enough to raise up for a dash down the tail to the drebbin’s back -- his path came to a stop when Osha neared. 

Even with the Force to root him on the creature, he felt the jarring impact of Osha's blow.

There was no more drebbin below him...

He was falling.

A wrenching feeling, then a tight hold around his middle as Osha plucked him from the air. The rancor turned to follow the momentum, and avoid the drebbin’s jaws. As he tumbled, Osha lowered his hand to the ground and let Luke go.

It felt like being thrown, the wind knocked out of him as he rolled. As Luke staggered to his feet and willed the world to right itself, he saw that Osha’s controlled fall meant the rancor was up and pummeling the side of the drebbin's snapping jaws. Luke bolted back into the fray.

A shriek let loose, the drebbin struck along the rancor’s arm. Osha bellowed in pain.

Approaching where Osha and the drebbin clashed, Luke narrowly missing getting stomped on by a rancor’s foot, then another as Naye crashed into the drebbin from the side, slamming it into the canyon wall again. Luke brought his arm up to shield from debris from the cliffside raining down, and leaped to avoid another rancor foot.

A shrill cry lifted. Naye. Her pain resounded through the Force, but Luke couldn’t make out much from his quickly shifting vantage point on the ground.

The drebbin’s foot came down hard in front of him, dirt and stones scattering. Luke threw himself onto it, gathering enough of the Force to leap up a rancor arm that had drawn near in a swipe at the creature, and in the space of a blink, jumped from it and to the drebbin's back.

A huge roar of impact. From the corner of his eye Luke spied Naye’s form still against the canyon wall to his left. Alive. For now.

Osha was still too close, trying for a killing blow to the drebbin who evaded them with ease. Even wounded as it was, its skin torn, thick brown liquid streaming out, it was still too fast.

If he had more time, Luke thought, he could think of something else, but two of their rancors were hurt and _Osha_ \--

With an inhale Luke summoned enough of the Force to shove the rancor to his back several yards, then activated his lightsaber, flicking on the blade lock, and tossed it like a spear. Osha hit the ground. Luke himself almost lost his footing on the gushing blood as the drebbin leaped towards the fallen rancor--

A rumble spread across the valley.

Luke’s attention bore on his blade. It had entered through the base of the drebbin’s skull and Luke _pushed_ it further, past skin, bone, and muscle. By the time the lightsaber exited through the drebbin’s left eye a couple of seconds later, the creature was already pitching forward lifelessly, landing limp at Osha’s feet.

Luke slid off the side of the drebbin's bloodied flank, taking a rolling tumble from it as it crashed to the ground. The lightsaber, still in Luke's Force hold, landed on the ground a meter from Osha's foot, blade still locked on. Distantly, he registered Eren running and screaming for Naye behind him. More warning from his danger sense jerked him to a standing position an arm raised as he pulled on the Force, directing it to the swiftly collapsing cliffside beside Naye to where Eren was running.

Too late, half of it was already crumbling down, half of it was soon to slide down -- precious seconds lost.

But another reach through the Force, pulled the sliding soil and rock up as Luke concentrated on the part that was crumbling from the top. That held, and Luke turned to the other half of the cliffside. 

A haphazard technique held that mass of dirt and rock in place, and instinctively Luke joined into the channeling, much like he’d do when working with his Jedi, smoothing over gaps, equalizing the pull on the Force.

The sprawling mass of dirt and rock floated up. The rest of the cliffside held.

Aytell, Luke realized once everything had stilled. But Aytell's control wasn’t enough to keep the rockfall up, and he knew it wasn't enough. All that mass needed to be put it back in place.

Luke summoned focus. Aytell had a greater familiarity with the specifics of earth manipulation -- the intricacies of the material that made up the soil and rock, the makings of stable slope, and Luke drew from it to rearrange the debris into a rock boundary atop the cliffside. There. This too would hold. Luke exhaled, drew away from Aytell's mind and loosened his grasp of the Force. 

Luke turned around, realizing Aytell had been chanting just as the man went silent and took off in Naye’s direction where Eren was standing rigid. Osha was already there, snuffing worriedly. Off a few yards away, Sau was clumsily getting to her feet with low pained sounds as she rubbed at her head. 

Naye...The fact that the older sow lay in the same supine position as she was when Luke had seen her during the fight made dread gather in him.

Luke scanned quickly for everything else. Eren seemed physically unhurt though his anxiety felt sharp. Beside him Sau thundered towards Naye.

Luke picked up his gore-sodden lightsaber, shut it down, and hastened in her direction, stopping by Naye's feet, beside Aytell.

The older sow had deep gashes over her chest and belly, all bleeding considerably, but she growled weakly, which Luke took as a good sign. Osha huffed and moaned softly, pressing his nose gently against her head. Sau plopped down at her other side with a soft moan of her own. Both the rancors' had claw slashes along their arms, pain at their own wounds, and distress at Naye's state soaked the Force. At Aytell's side, Eren’s face was pale and blank as he looked at the downed rancor almost in disbelief.

He stood suddenly. “I’ll--I’ll get Mother Vila.”

Luke felt Naye indicate the seer was on her way, and turning his attention to the bond he realized Mara was also up and on her way. He sent her some reassurance and was about to tell Eren, but Eren had already broken into a run toward the way they'd come.

Turning his attention back to Naye, he thought while Mara and Mother Vila arrived, he might as well see how he could help, if just a little.

”What are you doing?” Aytell asked sharply. “Are you a healer too?”

Luke shook his head. “No, I don’t know enough about rancor bodies." Mara might, he thought, and even if she didn't know specifically Mara these days was second to Cilghal in her mastery of healing techniques. Whatever she didn't know, she could probably glean from her bond with Osha. "But pain minimizing techniques are elastic. If they don’t work, they don’t do any harm either.” He paused, dropping his hand, suddenly conscious of his status as outsider, the lightsaber in his other hand may as well be a flashing light. One thing was to be an offworlder, quite another was to be a male Jai with all the suspicion that accompanied -- and to have found Aytell out, besides. Little wonder Aytell's tone had been harsh. “May I?”

Aytell turned away, nodding.

Luke lifted his hand from Naye a short while later. The rancor was still under some pain, but less than she’d been initially, and her gratitude thrummed through the Force. Her lifeforce seemed strong yet. It would be a matter of treating the wound and helping her heal. Luke went to the stream to wash his lightsaber's hilt, and the dirt and drebbin blood off him. Taking stock, he felt a few scratches and bruises from the debris and falls, but nothing worse than a strenuous day at the academy.

Aytell's eyes fell on the lightsaber in his hand when Luke returned to Naye and the other two rancors. “You are Jai too.”

Luke nodded, lifting his gaze to Aytell. He could cast. Clearly, he didn't have mastery of his abilities, but he had _some_ background. Eren had insinuated Aytell might lack Force talent, but Luke had no reason to believe he was any less gifted than Eren. “And you--you know--”

“Only minor spells,” Aytell said tersely. “I tried to convince Vesha otherwise. Should the council know heavy censure would follow.” His mouth was set into a line. “I did not want it.”

Luke gestured around them. “This could have been worse if you hadn’t known.” On retrospect it, seemed obvious. Strictures and lived reality could be two separate things. The more rigid a group or society, the more workarounds there were just under the surface.

“You saved Naye and Eren. For this I am thankful," Aytell said curtly. "I will keep your secret, Jai.” The last sounded as if that was all he would say of the topic.

 _Keep mine_ , lingered in the air between them.

Luke bit down on a frustrated _wait_ as Aytell went to Sau, and he went to Osha's side. Of course, he’d keep Aytell’s secret, but he didn’t want to let the matter go, _especially_ now. That Aytell had been taught, if only a little, felt like an admission of how bankrupt the prohibition was. Aytell knew it, too. One could levy an accusation of hypocrisy, but that helped little. It was neither reasoned, and even if deeply felt, it was too mired in fear to be anything but corrupt. Tempting as it might be to think that if he could just address this, he might make Aytell _see_ , he knew it to be a mistake. Knowing that Vesha had taught Aytell spells did nothing but underscore the pernicious problem at the root of everything.

Luke watched as Aytell sat beside Sau, murmuring something to her in a low tone. Shackles took many forms, he remembered thinking only a few days ago. 

And truly, the most insidious ones were those we put on ourselves.

\--

Eren came back with a pale Vesha, Mara, and Vila trailing behind them. 

”An attack?” Mara asked, dashing towards Naye with Vila. While Vila stopped by her rancor, Mara quickly went over to Osha. Over Mara's shoulder, Luke saw Aytell rush towards Vesha and begin whispering -- probably an account of what happened-- as they walked to Sau. 

Luke's eye was drawn to Eren who, no longer in shock, now felt agitated in a different way. It made no difference to Luke if Aytell told Vesha the whole of it or not, or even if Vila were to find out. He and Mara had concealed his identity for convenience, if this should be as far as it went, so be it. 

Luke turned back to Mara and Osha who had dutifully brought his head near Mara so she could scan the wound across his face. “Drebbin.” He pointed at the behemoth carcass across from them.

"You're lucky you didn't lose an eye," she chided the rancor. He growled. Her mate, he told her, fought like a witch.

Mara eye's flickered towards Luke who shrugged with a lopsided smile. That was another possibility, he hadn't considered: one or more of the rancors could give him away. Mara threw a furtive glance to Vila at Naye, but the seer was focused on her own ailing rancor. In the scope of things, Luke doubted Vila would care.

“Drebbins were thought to be gone from this woods,” Vila was saying, reaching to stroke the side of Naye's head as she looked towards the carcass. The rancor let out a soft whine. “The filthy creatures aren't satisfied until they can gorge themselves on a rancor,” Vila told her. “It had probably been tracking them for several hours. The rancors will need their wounds cleaned, and rest of the day and the night to be healed.” She patted Naye again, whispering something Luke couldn't make out.

Mara nodded.

Vesha came over to them with a lumbering walk, her face drawn. “Sau says Naye took the brunt of it.”

Vila nodded. “It is true.”

Vesha nodded heavily. “Shall we chant then?”

Vila shook her head, her mouth twisting in disapproval. “You are in no state to chant right out of the rite, child. Even if you could manage to chant without falling asleep, you'd never be able to sing an effective spell in this state. Go finish your rest. I will see to Naye and Sau for the moment.” She looked over at Mara. “The Jai can help.”

Mara nodded. “Of course.”

Vesha gestured to Eren a few steps away. “Come.”

Eren shook his head.

Vesha sighed. "You do this now."

“You both lied,” he accused in a choked voice. "You said I could give you--"

”Quiet,” Vesha scolded, a flash of fear snaking out through her exhaustion. “The rancors are hurt. This is not the time for your childishness.”

“I want nothing from you.” He took a step back from her, moving towards the mouth of the canon and disappearing from sight.

Vesha sighed and looked over to Aytell who had come to stand beside her. ”How many times must he do this?”

“I will go back with you then tend to him,” Aytell announced. 

Vesha grimaced. “I am at my wit's end," she hissed.

Aytell looked at her worriedly. “Come rest. You are tired. All will be right by nightfall."

Vesha shook her head. “No. Just...go deal with him now." She gestured to the rancors. "There's already been misfortune. I don't want his foolishness to cause more.”

“You cannot go alone through the path, tired as you are. Everyone else is tending to the rancors. A few minutes won’t worsen matters.”

"You too, Aytell?"

He stared at her, no give in his expression.

"I cannot do this with you. Just do as I say."

"There's already been misfortune," Aytell replied quietly.

Vesha made a sound of disgust. "You can be worse than him," she snapped. "Don't make me order--" 

“Have him," Mara interrupted impatiently, pointing at Luke, "Go with her. There. She's accompanied. Mother Vila and I take care of the rancors. Aytell can go get Eren. Problem solved." Annoyance passed through the bond. She'd had enough with family spats right now.

Vesha nodded and Luke caught Aytell's shoulders relaxing. 

Vila began to chant and Luke caught Mara’s you’ll-tell-me-later expression while she moved towards Sau. He took a few steps away from the rancors and towards the part of the canyon from where they'd come.

Vesha hadn't followed, and Luke turned. She'd moved closer to Aytell and said something too low for Luke to hear. Aytell nodded and brought his hand to her arm as she drew close, top of her head against his chest. His expression had softened and he replied something back, letting his arm fall.

Vesha drew away, a bit of nervousness seeping out from her as she turned to Luke. A few plodding paces and she'd caught up to him.

She gestured in front of them. “It’s this way.”

\--

A few minutes after they’d been walking, Vesha turned to Luke with a pleading expression that sat strangely on her face.

“I know what you must think of me, but for Aytell’s sake--”

They'd begun ascending up to the area where rancors weren't permitted, following the stream until it became a creek. 

Luke lifted his hands. “I didn’t see or hear anything.”

Aytell must have told her. No wonder she’d been so nervous.

She stayed silent. The snapping twigs and crunch of leaves underfoot the only sound. “Aytell has always hated spellcasting. He knows the spells he does because I insisted. Should harm befall me on the mountains, I would want him to find safe passage back.”

Luke didn’t reply and she added defensively. “It is not because I think he is like a woman. He is not. He is my mate, and he is content in his place, no matter what you might think. _He_ was the one who asked me to take another husband. I would have been happy with things as they were with just Aytell and I.” She looked off to the trees. “Whether Aytell hadn't sired a daughter on me, whether he even _could_ didn't matter. I know the burden of my line. But he was right that Grandmother wouldn’t allow it. She'd have picked my second husband for us if we hadn't." Vesha met Luke's eyes. "She still dreams of evil women coming for our clan, thinks someone must stand if they do. Me, my daughter, her daughter after.”

“Past isn’t destiny,” Luke said lightly.

“I suppose Jai wouldn't think so. Aytell mentioned something last night. Mara's grandfather, evil like a nightwitch.” Her features hollowed out with weariness. "Like my mother."

He shook his head. “My father. He used to be Jai then...turned, and I was thinking," he ventured, "about what you asked last night: How does evil come to lodge in a heart?"

Vesha shook her head. "I did not mean--"

"It's a good question. I think it's worth asking, worth thinking about." He looked over towards where the vegetation was thinning again, the landscape becoming rockier. They were approaching area where the rock ledges were. He assumed the one where Mara had cast was one of several. These protruded here and there along a canyon, this one longer and rockier than where the stream was. 

"The stories children are told where I come from always say evil lies out there, but then you grow up and realize it isn’t. The seeds of it are close.” He brought a hand to his chest. “I think...that it begins little by little, a little fear, a little resentment, a little anger, like dust in a dwelling...it accumulates. If a dwelling goes to long without cleaning, it becomes uninhabitable. Other things move in. Unpleasant things.”

Vesha turned to him suddenly, her eyes desperate. “That’s what you think happened to my mother.”

Luke shook his head, almost wishing he could say yes. He knew from experience that burning need for answers, but it wouldn't be true. “I don’t know what happened to your mother," he replied quietly. "But that’s what happened to my father, probably. And not just to him. I’ve seen it in others," and had others see it in _him_ , "...too many times.”

“And what do Jai do?”

“There is no one thing. Just like there is no one type of Jai." He gave her a small smile. Small comfort, he knew. "But to watch over like a seer watches over witches is not a bad idea. Neither are rituals of this sort, the space to think for a bit without..." Your grandmother, he was tempted to say, "distractions. To strip yourself down to the basics: you alone, you and those you love best.”

She blew out a breath. “Everything is easier east.” Concern fell over her face again. “But there is still distraction. Eren. I thought this trip would please him.”

Luke stayed silent.

Vesha threw him a glare. “No matter what you think of me I do not treat him harshly.”

Luke shook his head. “I don’t think that. But is it distraction when a...connection this close isn't...peaceful?”

“Nor do I suffocate him," she continued as if she hadn't heard him. "The limits I place upon him are for his protection. He is young. Aytell says he’ll grow into contentment as he did.” She swallowed. “But Aytell had always felt...different.” Her gaze grew distant. “Quieter. Quick to repair my leathers when they cracked. Quick to sit with me after grandmother dressed me down. He didn’t even love me then." Her gaze returned. "Aytell never needed much...I think I would give him the world for it.” Her shoulders dropped. "Eren...there is a neediness in him I do not understand, even with all he has been granted." She lowered her voice. "My grandmother had four mates and oversaw a peaceful hearth. I can’t even keep two.” She clenched her jaw, muttering darkly, "And she would have something to say about that. She _always_ has something to say about me and what I should be for disaster not to befall us all."

Vesha raised her chin. “What would a Jai say to that? That I'm heartless for not wanting to tend to a man who wants and wants and wants? That I should free him so he can lose his standing, his safety, his home, and the child he sired? I do not know how it is in the east, but in the west _free_ is another word for a man no woman wants.” She closed her eyes. "I would not do that to him. Aytell would not forgive me for it. Or I could give him to another, again cast him out of his home, separate him from the child he has sired. Neither he nor Aytell would want that either. So what would a Jai say I should do?" 

Luke shook his head. “There are no easy answers for anything, Vesha. Jai or not.”

“Impressively unhelpful."

He smiled ruefully. “You did come for the ritual." His own skepticism towards it had melted away, he found. At base, it hadn't been skepticism as much as apprehension, the instinctive unease of what unknown matter could be stirred up, an aversion to whatever could hurt. That cast aside, what he and Mara had gone through here had given them so much already. "And you haven't finished it yet, correct?”

She nodded and stopped by a mid-sized boulder with some markings on it. "We're close by."

“So you might first finish it and then take stock where all of you are.”

Vesha sighed. “That is the worst counsel I’ve ever heard.”

Luke chuckled. “I’m a man." He spread his hands. "I'm not supposed to give counsel.”

Vesha scoffed a little. “I expected more from a Jai.”

He shrugged. So Aytell had told her.

“ _The_ Jai.”

He turned his head slightly. That...

“The Luke Sky-walker.” 

He felt his brows draw together. 

“Aytell said your blade is green." Vesha smirked. "Also your wife calls you Sky-walker when you vex her...and you seem to do so quite often.”

Luke rubbed at his forehead, feeling a sheepish smile come over his face. Now that she mentioned it, he and Mara could have maybe been a little bit more careful.

“It's there." She pointed to a sloping rock overhand a few paces away. Luke was about to say his good-bye and head back down when she mused, "I was learning my first complex spells when I heard of _the_ Jai. But the great Luke Skywalker worth only a starship?”

“You say that,” Luke had to raise his eyebrows at her, “but you never saw _that_ starship.”


	9. Chapter 9

A snappish growl shook the trees as Luke emerged at the canyon where Vila and Mara were tending to the rancors. The trip back had taken him slightly longer because he'd stopped to pick up the things Mara had left behind at the rock shelter in her rush to come down to the canyon area where all the commotion had taken place.

“Oh, settle down,” Mara’s voice rang over Mother Vila’s singing, her sense brushing Luke’s through the bond in greeting.

She and Sau had moved away from Naye and Mother Vila further down the canyon, Osha stretching out beside the stream opposite them, half of him in the stream. Rancors loved the water, a good thing, since their physiology made them prone to overheating, even in the temperate mountain climate.

Sau, the youngest rancor of the three, looked none too happy being treated by Mara. She felt even less happy when Osha growled his agreement to Mara's scolding without lifting his head.

“I don’t care how they do it in your herd, you were foolish enough not to stand back when Naye told you.” Mara glared at the rancor who was holding her heavily slashed arm protectively close to her chest.

Sau let out another low rumble that felt to Luke like protest.

“I can’t start to heal it without cleaning it. You didn’t see Naye or Osha make a stink about it.”

Sau huffed sullenly. She was under the impression both Osha and Naye had spells cast on them to draw away pain.

"You got a pain warding spell too," Mara told her. "But the sting isn't going to completely go away."

Luke passed Vila who was standing, her eyes closed, in front of Naye. The rancor was on her side breathing deep and even. Luke winced sympathetically at the ugly wounds on her chest and side. Vila had already cleaned them, and they weren't bleeding at least. Beyond them, he need only to glance at the shadow of the drebbin carcass to see how it was capable of inflicting severe damage to rancor herds.

Vila raised her arms in a slowly with the kind of precision Luke had witnessed yesterday in Mara’s hand gestures as she'd assembled the amulet -- perhaps to a further degree, given that after these movements Vila stepped forward then to the side and swayed, singing all the while. It looked like a dance, a complicated one at that. Interesting though, given the amount of power she was subtly vectoring and guiding towards the sleeping rancor. Luke forced himself to keep walking. 

By where Mara was, Osha had raised his head in Sau’s direction, annoyed. Hatchling, he rumbled as Luke neared.

Sau gave another snappish growl in protest. 

“Then don’t act like one,” Mara scolded, “And let me finish cleaning the wounds.”

Osha huffed, irritated that the youngster was so spoiled. She’d never known war, she’d never gone through a proper hunt --

Sau gave a low moan urging for Mara to hurry. Apparently she'd heard some version of this before.

Luke couldn’t help chuckling as he put he and Mara's things on the ground nearby. Osha acknowledged him with a friendly grunt and lowered his head again to continue resting.

Mara had gone back to her task, closing her eyes. Luke went to Osha. He couldn’t see any deep wounds on him, but inquired if he needed anything. 

Osha replied a negative. Mara's spells, the rancor noted, were less soothing than a witches but faster and effective. 

Luke stared in Vila’s direction, not too blatantly, he hoped. The seer was doing a half turn. Looking a bit more closely Naye seemed to be in a trance, but what Vila was doing didn’t _feel_ anything like a Jedi trance. 

He wanted to ask Osha, but the rancor had nodded off, and Luke only rubbed his leathery neck instead. 

\--

Mara didn’t take too long to finish with Sau. Vila was still working with Naye when Mara turned from the small mound of rocks and debris that she’d removed from Sau’s various wounds. 

The rest Luke recognized as a healing technique at base. Given that Sau would be given time to rest, he felt Mara opt to root the technique, to draw on the Force at the base of the rancor's wounds, to expedite the rancor’s own healing as opposed to supplant it, the way an emergency would require. The power in the forest itself should also add to the technique's efficacy.

At some point, Aytell had returned with Eren They passed Vila still singing and swaying before Naye, nearing to check on Sau after acknowledging Luke. Sau greeted them with a drowsy snuff.

Luke reached for a sense of Eren’s state. Time alone had to have cooled him down, but Luke could feel the pulse of his discontent and frowned.

“How is it?” Mara asked, patting Sau’s neck; she was done. The rancor had closed her eyes, little less prickly now and growled her gratitude groggily. 

“Rest up,” Mara said before moving towards Luke. Aytell and Eren went to sit at either side of the napping rancor. 

“To make them sleepy is a good idea." Mara looked to Naye, and Luke took it as a tip Vila had given her. "Rancors heal faster when they get a chance to sleep.” She held out a hand to help Luke up. “You’re due for a dunking, Skywalker.”

Luke flashed her a dismayed look as he took it to stand, almost prodded at her that she’d blown his cover by addressing him as carelessly as she was now, but decided to save the needling for later. “I washed up.”

Mara wrinkled her nose. “Not enough.” She gestured to the stream, where it curled past the cliffsides at either side of them. “There’s a deeper part past here where it becomes a river.”

Luke pouted at her, but it was half hearted, and he went for a fresh set of clothes and their higiene kit. Adjusting the shoulder bag, he fell into step beside her on their way out the canyon path. The real reason for this, he was certain, was her curiosity over what had happened, both with the drebbin and with Vesha and her husbands, particularly Eren. He went over all of it as they trekked down. Once at the river, he left the shoulder bag at the banks, and they waded in to an area where the water reached slightly past Luke's waist.

“It’s like you said,” he summed up as he scrubbed the remnants of the morning's tumult off him, “no one likes being second best. But I think there might be more than that too.”

Mara pinned her hair up. “How so? A calling?”

“I’m not sure. It’s confusing, I’m not certain he knows himself.”

She made an acknowledging sound. “That can make it complicated. Without him getting to it, there’s not a lot that can be done.”

“ _Can_ he even get to it?” Luke mused. “Being told over and over that there’s something you should be, that there’s a mold to fit into. Can he even imagine that things could be different enough to want anything else for himself?”

“Different how?” She smiled coyly.

He splashed lightly in her direction. “You had designs since you met him. What was it, breakfast, research, _recruitment_?” He looked at her slyly. “And you already had research _and_ breakfast.”

Mara laughed heartily, and splashed him back, made as if to swim away, but let herself be caught with a squawk. Water swished around them as he pulled her back against him and kissed her wet cheek, lingered there, growing solemn as he recalled Eren’s unhappiness.

“Even if the academy here were a possibility, I don’t even know if that’s what he wants. If we had more time...”

Mara’s hands covered his around her waist, below the round of her belly. “We’re not done yet. Neither is the ritual.”

Luke chuckled ruefully. “I just told that to Vesha when she asked for advice.”

Mara turned her head up to look at him. “She asked for advice?” She pulled away to face him.

“I thought you knew she would.”

Mara smiled. “I felt her receptive, but that's more than I expected.” Her pleasure rippled through the bond.

“I disappointed her,” he pointed out.

Her smile broadened. “Of course you did.”

“Hey," he protested.

“She feels desperate enough to want straight answers. This problem doesn’t have one. Doesn’t mean there _won’t_ be one.”

He reached to cup her face, surprised when she flinched, phantom pain trickling through the bond though her skin was unmarred. 

“Luke.”

He barely heard her as he drew into the bond. In a distance, he heard her sigh, and felt as she adjusted her concentration, permitting an easier search to when a stinging pain across her face roused her just hours ago. That kind of echo was nothing to heal, it would go away by itself soon since her bond with Osha was on the shallow side. Somewhat reluctantly, he pulled away. He knew all of that but...

“Don’t make that face at me,” Mara chided. His hands were still in hers and she gave them a squeeze.

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“It’s a lot less than what I’ve felt when you do something stupid.”

He winced. True enough. One of the few times he’d been foolish enough to dive into danger without her, he’d ended up with a rib fracture, and thought a trance would be the end of it. Mara had been livid of course, but what had truly given him pause was hearing how she’d been seen holding her middle in visible pain. The bond had been new and they hadn’t really known how to adjust it; he hadn’t even suspected a side effect like that. 

She dropped a quick kiss on his lips and he banished the thoughts. “Let’s get out.” 

“Did you look at the amulet?” she asked once they’d sat at the banks of the river on one of the blankets they’d brought, the rest of their supplies, including their clothes a few paces away. It’d been a little chilly when they’d first waded out, but the set the blanket up in a sunny patch, enough that it soon passed. He should probably get his lightsaber and clean the internal components, but for now he let Mara’s hands work on his upper back. 

"No, I just put it away."

“I’ll show it to you later.” There was a smile in her voice as her hands worked the muscle. “I hope you didn’t mind the wake up.”

Luke laughed softly. “I told you you can wake me up any time and that was...” 

“Mm?” 

“Magical.”

She chuckled and leaned close, wrapping her arms around him, her presence through the Force wrapping itself around him too, and he closed his eyes, happy to sink into it, almost reached to touch his son too but stopped.

“Was not,” Mara murmured. “There’s nothing magical about the Force.”

Luke didn’t open his eyes. “I didn’t mean the Force.”

Her presence brightened even more with that familiar hue, but true to form, she groaned a dismayed, “Oh, _stop_ ,” and pulled away, nimble fingers back at his shoulders.

\--

Vesha was back when they returned, lifting up a small but still man-sized portion of the drebbin on a branch-fashioned meat pole she and her husbands put between some trees. Hacking into the creature might not have been easy; Luke spied a crude bone break at both parts of the slab Vesha was floating up.

“Not the best tasting meat as I recall,” Vila was saying from where she sat in front of them, “but it _is_ fresh.”

“Foul,” Vesha grunted, scrunching her face. Luke had to agree and judging from Mara’s face, she did too. Maybe it’d smell better cooked.

“I’ve never eaten it,” Aytell broke in thoughtfully, eyes poring over the slab of meat as Vesha made rope coil around the protruding bone at what Luke assumed was the top of the piece, tying it down.

Vesha's precision with the Force was surprising for someone not yet a full witch, but Luke was beginning to suspect Vesha not making full witch had less to do with her skill level than with other personal factors, her severe-sounding grandmother not least of them.

"We might want to use stronger spices with it. I saw some silia root on our way here,” Aytell looked over at Eren who refused to look at him.

Luke shared a look with Mara.

“Ugh,” Mara’s voice sounded a little strained all of a sudden. “The smell.” It did seem to become more cloying the longer one was close to it. She covered her nose and directed herself to Vesha, who had just finished her tie on the meat. “You need any help?”

Vesha flashed her an amused look. “You don’t look like you’ll be much help, Jai.”

Mara gave a little shrug, her hand still over her mouth and nose.

Vesha turned to Eren, and Luke saw him stiffen. “See if you can fish something, after you gather silia.” She drew her lips together in a line. “I’m not sure how palatable the meat will be. With or without herbs.”

Eren went for his tools wordlessly.

Vesha approached Mara and lowered her voice. “Can you go with him?”

“Sure.” Taking in Vesha’s concerned expression as she looked at Eren, Mara added, “Any more time here, I’d have to go get the candies.”

Vesha snorted slightly, and Mara went with Eren. Luke heard her hurrying him out of the canyon, while busied himself helping Aytell and Vesha. 

To Aytell he asked, “He still angry?”

Aytell shared a look with Vesha, who was getting a blade. 

“Yes." Vesha was the one that answered. "If time with the Jai does not soothe him, you should talk to him, Mother.”

Vila shook her head. “A witch’s heart I can understand, but a man’s...? I doubt I would be helpful, child. Men’s hearts are mysterious.”

Luke fought the urge to roll his eyes as he went towards Aytell at the bottom part of the carcass to offer help. Aytell gestured for him to try his hand at skinning along the back. Luke went to his pack for a blade.

Vesha made frustrated noise as she levitated the knife to begin cutting the upper layer of skin away, while Aytell began on the bottom part. “I see why some women prefer the company of other women.”

Vila let out a guffaw. “Whoever you share your hearth with is bound to trouble you from time to time. That is a fact.” She looked after where Eren and Mara had gone. “You can do little to change the hearts of others, be it man or woman. The only heart that truly belongs to you is your own.”

Luke sneaked a glance at Aytell who kept his skinning. Vila’s advice was going in a familiar direction.

“Then there is no point to anything,” Vesha grumbled, clearly sensing it as well.

Vila laughed again. “The point is patience. There are stories that say the wild rancors were driven from the valley.”

“In Allya’s time,” Vesha spoke up over her slicing. “With courage and blood.”

Luke thought to what Vila mentioned in the first ritual about men.

_Until Allya saw into their hearts, just as she saw into those of the rancors. She granted them food when they were hungry, water when they were thirsty, a fire to keep warm, and sons to care for them in their twilight. Life. In return, she asked for their service and strong daughters to pass the lore._

“My mother’s first husband told the story differently -- that there were no _wild_ rancors. There were only rancors. They needed only to be brought to heel to see life as more than beasts. Inevitably they did. Every last one.” 

The seer’s gaze focused on Vesha. She smiled a little. “With _patience_ , more than anything, because blood...,” her smile faded, “Blood has no place in a hearth.” 

Vesha’s shoulders sagged. “I know this, Mother, and I know patience too, but for how long?” 

Vila tapped her stick. “However you can manage.” She sighed deeply. “And if there comes a time where you cannot, then you might want to speak to a sister for a more suitable match within the clan for him.” She waved a hand. “As the law permits.” 

Out of the corner of his eye Luke, saw Aytell’s eye dart up to Vesha in alarm. 

“He wants to know the child,” Vesha said, not looking at him. 

“Within the clan, that is possible.” Vila’s eyes narrowed. “He can still see the child grow. Or are you cruel in the West?” 

Vesha shook her head and voiced the same worries Luke had heard from her just hours before, “And if no sister, nor clan woman wants him? If he should go to a hearth where he is unhappier?” 

There was also, the matter of Aytell. Luke could feel Aytell’s own anxiety well up. He noticed he’d stopped skinning, blatantly listening to the conversation. 

Vila was tapping her stick again. “If this concerns you, perhaps such a time has not come to pass. But a witch has patience,” she said with finality. “We must follow the harmony to make it. Listen before we can sing.” Vila lifted her head towards where Eren had left. 

“It is said a young husband can be difficult. And he is a man. So patience.” She added, “And a child is no small thing. He might need only to see the child he has sired on you to grow calm like the Firegill Lakes.” 

Luke paused in his own work and frowned. 

_She will know it came from me and love me for it,_ Eren had said. 

He had never broached what he wanted when Luke had pressed. Luke felt that same disappointment he had at the river with Mara. If they only had more time... 

Luke stifled a sigh and went back to skinning. He and Mara were _outsiders_. To want to hold one’s hand out was one thing. Perhaps Vesha and Aytell had a better read on Eren, they certainly knew him better than he and Mara did. Perhaps Vila had more insight into the ways he could, if not happy, be satisfied with things. 

They could only hope for the best. 

\-- 

Mara returned with Eren and a bounty of fish they’d caught at the stream not too long later. Mara made a face as soon as she approached. 

"Cooking hasn’t improved it,” she muttered coming over to where Luke sat. 

“Really?” He tilted his head. “Smells better to me.” 

“Your palate, farmboy." 

“I’m going to ignore the last time I saw you tear into port narsh,” he said and laughed at the ensuing glower. 

__Port narsh was an pretty standard cantina dish, some dubious ground meat and fried redistarch. Humble. He’d thought Mara had pretended indifference to it early on, and he’d caught on soon that it was a favorite, though he hadn’t mentioned it for while after. When he did bring it up as a comeback, her outrage had been a thing of beauty. He’d learned that initial indifference hadn’t been feigned at all; she’d just never imagined anyone would care about inconsequential things like her prefered cantina dish. A winsome smile had peeked under all that bluster.__

Now, Luke couldn’t resist sliding an arm around her shoulders. “Oh, don’t worry sweetheart. I don’t hold your plebeian tastes against you.” 

"Says the man who eats womp rats in stew."

He grinned. "My lovely wife didn't complain, as I recall. In fact, the 'huh, this doesn't taste like vermin' might as well be her version of 'compliments to the chef.'" He let himself preen a little.

Mara swatted at him, chuckling. “Nerf.” 

“Fish then?” Aytell called from the fire. 

“Please,” Mara replied. 

While Aytell put it on the fire, Luke turned to Mara and lowered his voice to ask, “Eren?” 

Mara’s expression lost its humor. “Upset still,” she murmured. "Very." 

“At Vesha having taught Aytell?” 

Mara nodded. “He wouldn’t tell anyone. Obviously he doesn’t want any harm to fall on either of them.” Her expression grew morose. “He cares for them. In some ways...that makes everything hurt more. He said...even with Aytell not fathering Vesha’s child, that there’s no point in competing. He wishes he could hate Aytell for being first, but without him Eren thinks Vesha might have sold him. He thought his gift was why Vesha chose him, and now...” 

Luke tamped down on a wince. 

“He worries about it,” Mara’s voice was weighed down. “The possibility of being sold off, discarded.” 

“They wouldn’t.” Luke stared towards where Eren sat, taciturn. Vesha approached gingerly. She was too far to make out what she was saying, but Eren wouldn’t look at her. She tried to talk to him for a few excruciating minutes then withdrew to sit beside Vila. “Vesha was asking for Vila’s advice.” 

“What did Vila tell her?” 

Luke turned his head to look at Mara. She was staring at Vesha and Vila. “That she should be patient.” 

Mara made a sound at the back of her throat. “Not bad.” 

“Said the baby might help.” 

Mara grimaced. “Eren was orienting himself in that direction. Placing all his hopes on being his daughter’s favorite. Now, he’s not so sure. Thinks his daughter might end up favoring Aytell too.” She looked toward where Eren was sitting, his head bowed, his hands slack at his side. "He's in a bleak mood." 

Luke lowered his eyes to the ground before them. He could sense as much. 

Mara stayed quiet for so long that he lifted his eyes to her. 

“What’d you tell him?” he asked. 

“That he shouldn’t worry about being discarded. That Vesha and Aytell care for him...” She straightened up, an impatient undertone in her words. “Nothing helpful. Vesha’s only started to ease up around me. Last thing I want is for her to accuse me of planting ideas in Eren’s head. All of that might make things between them worse.” 

He understood that impatience. “And what did you _want_ to tell him?” 

Aytell had approached Eren who didn't look up, despite him appearing to ask something. Aytell didn't seem to say anything more, just sat a few paces away. 

Luke turned to Mara who was rubbing at her forehead. “Same thing I told him and Aytell last time. If you can’t fit in the mold, it’s not you that’s the problem. His relationship to Vesha doesn’t have to define him. He doesn’t have to consign himself to the hope of someday being a woman’s favorite.” 

“But maybe he doesn’t want anything else. Aytell was adamant that Vesha made him learn those spells.” 

“Aytell never wanted anything for his own.” 

Luke blinked. That was it. 

"Or it's different for him," Mara amended, “Some are different. For every one of us, there’s someone like Aytell. He’s happy where he is.” She blew out a breath. “Maybe that’s in him, maybe his wants were conditioned by the system here. Who cares. _He_ 's happy.” She leaned against Luke, her disquiet growing. “Eren isn’t.” 

Luke withdrew his arm from her shoulder to stroke her back. Aytell had stood back up and was checking on the meal. 

“It’s frustrating,” she bit out. 

“They’ll figure it out. Somehow. Even if it doesn’t look the way we’d like it to.” 

Aytell called Luke over and he got to his feet, offering Mara a hand up. She took it and they approached the fire, Mara taking her fish, Luke his piece of the drebbin.

Vesha caught Mara’s look over her own piece of drebbin. “It’s not as bad as it smells.” 

\--

After lunch, Vila, Mara, and Vesha went to check on the dozing rancors while the men cleaned up. Eren's dour mood seemed to have seeped into Aytell, and Vesha after her return. 

Vila had to have read it because once they sat down by where they’d set up camp, she went into a funny tale of teaching a rancor one of the harvest dances. It was lighthearted enough to ease some of the strained air. 

“Sister Mara,” Vila said after closing her tale. “A story? There is some time before dinner yet.” 

Mara looked skyward for a moment, finally she asked, “Not a story..." Vila indicated she should go on anyway, and she pursed her lips. "Do the men in your clan weave?” She looked over at Vesha sitting by Vila, several paces from her mates. “It’s not that common in Singing Mountain.” 

Vesha shook her head. “Nor in the Western Flatirons.”

“It’s the south that is known for its weavers,” Vila put in. 

“Six or seven years ago I met some weavers at a planet far from here,” Mara went on. 

Luke tilted his head. That was around the time she’d been closing up her work with Karrde. He glanced at Aytell who looked on with some interest. Beside him Eren's gaze continued to be miles away. 

“They worked with a special kind of silk, it was very rare and expensive,” she waved a hand, “but that’s not why I bring it up. Their type of weaving was as important to them as magic is to you.” 

“Really? So they didn’t have gifts?” Vesha asked. 

“Some did, many didn’t. That wasn’t what they valued. In their belief system the whole universe was a gigantic ocean, the planets and heavenly bodies were rocks to which tiny clams -- sea snails -- attached themselves to.” 

Vesha grimaced. “Are people the snails then in this story?” 

Mara smiled. “Yes. It comes from their ecosystem. In their planet, those clams attached themselves to those rocks through thin threads. They can be thin enough that you barely notice they’re there or thick enough to show patterns of color like a tapestry. It depends on the distance from the rocks. They called the formation of these threads weaving.” 

Vesha was making a face. “But that’s not weaving. Snails don’t weave. These people are snail-cultivators.” 

“By your definitions,” Mara continued, unruffled. “To them a good weaver was one who knew how to adjust a clam to its rock. Sometime the clams needed to be arranged and held at a distance from the rocks so as to produce gauzy threads.” She smiled. “Like for a veil. And sometimes they needed to be laid towards the rock so as to produce thicker threads. For a shawl.” 

“So people are the snails and they attach to the land, but also detach from it.” Vila sounded confused. “It is a very strange way of seeing things. One never detaches from the land." 

Mara moved her head, considering. “No, the point isn’t detaching -- to do that would ruin the sea silk unless it was ready to be treated and sold. The clams needed the rocks, and these...sea silk weavers thought _all_ ties were like that. Sometimes there was a need for a thin thread, sometimes there was a need for thicker material. To know when to encourage closeness or distance for the necessary thread, while making sure the clam had all it needs was the art of weaving to them.” 

She paused. “I didn’t think about it too much then, but there's something to it.” She met Vesha's eyes. “You don’t detach from anything you’re linked to -- be it good or bad, it's already part of you. You have to deal with it, find a way to do good with it, for yourself and others." 

Mara's gaze drifted to Aytell, Eren, and then Vila. "Links to people, your home, they’re enduring...but change compels us to stop, take stock, and adjust where we stand from time to time.” 

Luke thought of Jaina then and he and Mara’s earlier conversation. 

_Does everything end in resentment down the line?_

Resentment wasn’t an end point, it was only a signal for a shift, distance, that would cycle back with time. Closeness or distance were not absolutes. 

“I suppose.” Vesha reached for her water gourd. "But that's still not weaving." 

\--

Dinner later on passed in the tranquility of the canyon. Given the surprise of the drebbin and the fact that the rancors were still healing, they were kept close and shared in the drebbin cooked over the open fire. The rancors weren’t too happy with the meat either, something Luke thought he'd never see, but tired enough to grudgingly eat it and continue their rest. 

Afterwards, they cleaned up and drew away soon after to their own sections of the canyon, preparing their bedrolls. Luke thought Vesha had moved hers rather distantly from her mates, noticing the distance she'd been keeping not only from Eren, but from Aytell. Luke didn't know if it was a consequence to the spat they'd had during the morning or if it was strategic, given Eren's state. Luke hoped that was the latter. He remembered thinking Eren was the favorite from how Vesha had treated him at the beginning. She'd been trying, that had to mean something. 

“Did I ever see any of that sea silk?” Luke murmured to Mara later as they lay down, thinking of what she'd narrated. Distance could be helpful in moments like this. 

“No. If I ever brought it to Yavin 4, the fungus moths there would have a banquet.” She gave him a small smile. “I never thought you’d be interested in this sort of thing.” 

“The story is interesting.” 

“Not a story," she objected. "I didn’t find it interesting at first.” 

“True of _so_ many things,” he added a suggestive lilt to his voice. 

“I’ll have you know, Skywalker. I’ve always found you interesting. All the more when you were in my clutches.” 

He snickered, pretty sure she was snickering too. “Oh, I know. How could you resist? There I was right out of my damaged X-wing. Completely unaware.” 

“Unshowered.” 

He almost laughed, but narrowly managed not to. “Unafraid.” 

“Just minutes later: _unconscious_.” 

There, he did snort out a laugh and curled up against her. 

“I was thinking...” Mara half sighed, voice turning solemn. “I never held it against you. The space you gave me while I was sick. I had asked for it, and I knew you didn’t want to step away...” 

“I didn’t want you to feel alone.” 

Her voice was hushed. “I didn’t. I knew what I was doing...but I -- I wish I hadn’t...asked for it. Wished I hadn’t shut you out.” 

Mara didn’t need a reply, but he had one all the same, and it was for her. “I did miss you. Terribly.” 

If _he_ heard that, he’d feel weighed down, but Mara was different, and he felt that same feeling as before. He looked for words for it. She felt like...his mind went to furtive smiles, but also to name days, gifts. Like that. She felt as if she’d received a gift. 

“I thought maybe if you could do without me then, it would spare you...later.” She huffed. “I know, I know.” 

“A page from my holodoc, actually.” He squeezed her hand, enfolding his presence around her. 

Mara chuckled, sinking further into it, into him, always so easy here and only getting easier. This close she didn’t need to respond, not with words. It was plenty clear as if the thought was his, as if the humor in it was his: 

He did not invent martyrdom. He was just the corusca standard for it. 

\-- 

The next morning after they'd had breakfast and packed up the camp, Vesha approached Mara. They were both strapping their bags to Osha, and Luke saw Eren standing behind Vesha, shuffling his feet a little. Luke hoped things were better, but there'd been no noticeable change for better or worse that he'd noticed at breakfast. Through the Force, Eren felt about the same too, a kind of thrum of anger and dissatisfaction, that at least didn't seem volatile. Now, there was some nervousness too. 

“Could Eren ride with you down to Sook’s Forest?” Vesha asked Mara. 

Mara’s eyes went to Eren who was looking anywhere but at her. She lowered her hand from the tie she was making. 

“He would like to,” Vesha pressed. 

“Really?” Mara glanced over at Luke, who gave her a shrug. He didn't know what this was about either. “Sure.” 

“Sau can still carry his bags.” She looked to Eren, ill at ease. "Will you need anything?" 

Luke drew back a couple of steps, Mara with him, in case they'd like privacy. 

“That’s unexpected,” Mara muttered. "Still angry, I guess." 

Luke noted Vesha was doing all the talking as she had yesterday, but maybe the intention behind it was to keep giving Eren distance. “Fill me in later?” 

An indulgent smile sparked in Mara's eyes. “Maybe." 

He tugged her over for a kiss, and if Mara had kissed him like _that_ at the river yesterday, they'd have been late for lunch. 

A rancor foot came down a few feet away. 

“The offworlder can ride with me,” Vila said from above. “Once you’re done, of course.” 

At that Mara broke off with a sigh. 

Vila was looking down at them nonchalantly, but humor saturated her Force presence as she clicked her tongue at Mara. “Don’t give me a long face, Jai. I can wait.” 

Mara gave Luke’s shoulder a squeeze and went over to Osha who offered his arm with an inquisitive growl. She murmured something to him that Luke couldn’t catch. He did sense the ripple of fondness she sent to the rancor as she began her climb up. 

I’m assuming you have many interesting tales to tell, offworlder.” Vila’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Being a Jai witch’s mate.” 

Luke smiled up at her. “One or two.” 

Osha grumbled as Luke turned to begin to climb up Naye. Surprise and displeasure flickered from the rancor and on second thought, Luke turned back to pat him. 

“Just trading off, big guy. I’ll be right up front.” 

Osha gave a short disapproving growl, but his next snuff felt more accepting of the turn of events. Luke felt Mara’s amusement through the bond and grinned up at her. 

“I hope this is not an annoyance,” Eren’s mumble drew his attention. Vesha had gone back to where Sau was with Aytell. 

“No,” Luke said facing him. “Not at all. If this is what you wanted.” 

Eren didn’t do more than nod as he went over to climb up Osha’s arm. Luke went to climb up Naye to take his spot beside Vila. To their other side, He saw Vesha and Aytell already seated on Sau. 

Vila gave a quick scan and called some commands, nudging Naye to the head of the group, with Osha and Sau following. As far as Luke could tell the path was the same one they’d taken the day before. 

“It’s strange that Osha would take so kindly to you, offworlder,” Vila said after they'd been riding for a few minutes. 

“Oh?” 

“That a rancor have kinship with a witch is the way of things. They merely tolerate men.” 

Luke doubted it based on his own experiences with Tosh near a decade earlier, and suspected Vila was putting him on. “Is that really so, Mother?” 

“You’ve seen something different?” 

He nodded. “I’ve seen rancors very attached to the boys that tend to them. I once met one who made his mother very angry when he used to spend the night with the herd instead of coming home.” 

That particular apprentice had just returned from his trip to the crystal caves and was as disciplined as any other, but to hear Streen tell it, he did spend inordinate amount of time with one of the herds in the grounds around Singing Mountain. He and Jacen would get along, Luke had thought, but Streen suspected this apprentice would be one of the few more content to stay home. 

Vila’s mouth puckered in disapproval though Luke didn't know if it was due to what he was saying or being contradicted. “That does happen, I’ll grant you that. Rancors as a whole like children. That is a different matter entirely. I speak of men.” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Luke continued lightly. “Eren mentioned how how attached Sau is to Aytell. I doubt he’s the only one.” 

Vila's face pinched. “I admit to not having met many offworlders, but you strike me as perhaps more vexing than most, Jai.” 

Luke laughed. Being contradicted then, and he caught on belatedly to her use of the title. If Vesha knew, it’d been only a matter of time before Vila found him out, but he’d seen no indication that the seer would react badly to it. He smiled sheepishly and chose not to remark on it. “Mara would agree with you.” 

She lifted her brows. “Is vexing a draw for Jai women?” 

“There--” 

“I know.” She waved a hand. “There is no such thing. Jai comprise many, beings without hands, with paws, with fins. But why would a Jai want to take part in the rites of a daughter of Allya? I know Mara’s answer, but I sense something else from you.” 

Luke stared off into the forest. He’d given the matter some thought. Mara might have been the catalyst for them taking part in the Rite of Stones, but he’d hardly been indifferent once they’d started. He certainly wasn't now. 

“I suppose it has to do with Allya being once a Jai. She might have made...mistakes. We turned our backs to her. That was our mistake. But even without...my people, her original clan, she started her own and she found her way back to who she was or...became someone different but worthy of being followed, learned from." He met Vila's gaze. "She kept to our most sacred codes -- to turn away from anger and hate, and she taught that to you -- in spite of being abandoned.” 

“That is what Jai say about Allya?” 

“Yes," he stopped to order his thoughts. "But it’s not just about Allya to me. My people...they thought to bind oneself to another was exceedingly dangerous. They didn’t understand it. Jai as a clan raised the young and while this fit some...it didn’t fit all.” 

Vila expression cleared. “Not you.” 

“No. I was raised by commoners. A mated pair.” Luke recalled the missing mending stitcher, could still feel that sense from his uncle, that his aunt was important, worth putting all manner of things aside for. Perhaps the feeling was clearer for how he'd felt it between Han and his sister even before Mara had been in the picture.

“And what they had was beautiful," he said softly. "I’ve never imagined living any other way."

They rode in silence, the path full of lush foliage at either side of them. At this level the rocky sparseness of the mountain wasn't as pervasive. 

"But Mara and I...we’re different from those who raised me," he continued. "And our child might be different. Dathomiri have lived in harmony with their abilities and their kin.” He smiled ruefully, “In some ways, Mara and I as a pair have more in common with your pairs than we do with the Jai of old.” 

“Save you having power beyond measure as a male," she pointed out. "This we do not know.” 

There was much he could have said, but he opted for the same he’d told Eren about his baby’s gift, “Power doesn’t matter, Mother.” 

Vila gave him a skeptical look. 

He thought for a second. “What is stronger? Power or harmony?” 

“It’s a false question," she answered smoothly. "For the greatest power of all is in the harmony of all life.” 

“Exactly. And harmony seems to me a question of song and silence. So is one who makes the silence less important than one who fills it? Does the one that sings need to sing always? Even when their throat hurts? Even when they want to cry?” He flashed Vila an easy going smile. “You speak of harmony. We Jai -- _Jedi_ \-- speak of balance. It’s not that different. Like us, balance takes many forms, but it is felt not imposed." 

He looked over to Vila wondering if she could understand, and tried for a clarification, "What powers I have, what powers Mara has only matter as much as we can share them. In your terms, as much as I can sing to fill her silences, as much as she can sing to fill mine.” 

Vila stared at him for a second. “Those are not our terms." He was about to ask if he'd offended her and apologize when she started cackling. "You speak chaos.” 

Luke ducked his head. No, he didn't sense any anger or offense from the old seer, even if she was far from persuaded. 

“Oh, Mother," he said. "I’ve found order gives me much more to be wary of than chaos.” 

\-- 

They stopped just before Sook’s Forest for a quick lunch where he’d regrouped with Mara. There hadn’t been enough time alone to ask how it went with Eren, but he did get the opportunity to tell Mara that Vila knew who he was -- and oh-so-gently leave the blame for it at her feet, much to her exasperation. 

By late after noon, they’d arrived at Sook’s Forest, where they'd leave Osha and say their good-byes. From there they'd take the night to rest and leave to Singing Mountain the day after. At Singing Mountain they wouldn't be overly worried that the trip to Agama's Cry had gone a day over schedule, but Mara had mentioned contacting Kirana Ti and them to let everyone know to expect them a night later. 

Luke dismounted from Naye and went towards Osha to give him thanks for the ride and to wish him a good hunt. The rancor huffed and leaned lightly into his hand. He gave one last look to him and Mara before going into the forest, Sau at his heels.

Naye sat on her haunches waiting for Vila, who had mentioned staying behind to cast a spell of comfort. All of the rancors were fully healed, but Vila had explained it as a custom, to soothe a long-bonded rancor who had gone through some distress, and there was no question that Naye had borne the brunt of the drebbin attack. Luke wondered idly what that kind of spell would be like. 

But as the seer gathered with Vesha and Mara, Eren and Aytell a few paces behind them, Luke felt creeping feeling of loss nudge within him. This was it. The ritual was done, and soon enough they'd return to their normal lives. 

“I trust you leave different from where you began,” Mother Vila said quietly, her eyes perched on Vesha. “Stronger, for the stone is the bedrock, but the rite will close only when you’ve granted your mates their gifts. Do remember that.” 

Vesha nodded and moved forward, offering a small drawstring pouch. “Here, Mother. May your paths be lit always. This is what the west is known for.” 

Mother Vila took the pouch, and opened it pulling out a thick golden bracelet not too different from the ones Vesha had worn during the prelude. She carefully put it back inside and pulled it closed, sliding the looped string over her wrist to leave her hands free while holding the pouch. 

“You honor me.” Vila put a hand on Vesha’s head and her smile faded to concern as Vesha walked to her mates. “Vesha of the Western Flatirons," she called. 

Vesha faced her with a curious look.

"Your clan needs a seer. It is in the _Book of Law_."

Vesha’s expression grew downcast. “We do. We...we hope one of our daughters will awaken as one.” 

"The _Book of Law_ cautions against months without a seer and you've spoken of years." Vila shook her head. Vesha didn't respond, looking down at her feet. 

“Come find me tomorrow evening,” the seer told her. "I will go with you to the Flatirons. There is much I need to discuss with Mother Treyu." 

Her head snapped up. “You would...? It’s not an easy journey, Mother Vila. And Grandmother--” 

“We will talk tomorrow, child. The Earth Shaker does not scare me,” she said firmly. “Go and rest for tonight.” 

Vesha bowed her head. “Yes, Mother. Thank you.” 

She and her mates began their walk out of the forest and towards the city gates, leaving Luke and Mara with Vila. 

Mara stepped forward, holding a small pouch in both her hands in front of Vila. 

“I was told a valuable Jai craft...I’m sure that once that existed, but it’s part of what we Jai have lost." Her voice was stilted as Luke knew it got when she was in the grip of a strong emotion. He laid an hand on her back. "So I’ve brought something else valuable to us. To me.” She pushed her hands forward. “May your paths be lit, Mother.” 

Vila took it with both hands. She looked in the pouch, gingerly drawing out a crystal. It was nearly clear, about an inch in length. A kyber crystal. 

The third Mara had brought back from Dantoine years ago, Luke knew. 

Vila’s eyes widened, she looked up at Mara in shock. “A magic crystal? They’ve been said to exist in the stories, but not here.” 

Mara smiled. “No. Not here. Jai know where. We are sent to find them just before our own awakenings. Our tests.” 

“An honor as well,” Vila's voice was at a natural level, though her hand held the pouch to her chest tightly. She put her free hand on Mara’s head. “I hope you found what you searched for, Jai.” Her gray eyes gentled as she looked at Mara. “That you remember that the song is everchanging...like the sun.” 

Mara nodded. “But always the same.” Luke felt a swell of gratitude in her. “It is a good lesson, Mother. Thank you.” 

Vila’s hand lowered to cup her face like a child. “May your steps be lighter Jai, for the stone holds all.” She let her hand slip away. Her voice lightened to slightly teasing, a glint of laughter in her eyes. “But the reminder goes for you as well that the ritual will only close after your mate has been granted his gift. You are bound to it.” Vila looked over to Luke, wryly, humor lurking under the words. “Spoiled as he might be.” 

Mara chuckled as Luke tried to hide his own smile. “What is a mate for if not to be spoiled?” 

Vila’s chuckled deepened. “Go, Jai witch,” she said, walking over to Naye. “It is almost time for supper.” 

\-- 

He and Mara wove their way back to the inn, passing by the market. Sunset meant the small streets spilled with activity; some strange tension was in the air, but it was slight -- as if there were some festivity to occur. Luke didn’t pay it too much attention. Given that they’d spent most of the day riding down from the mountains, weariness weighed him down. It might also be that sense of loss of a chapter however short, finished. 

From the bond, he could feel that same weariness bearing down on Mara as well, but she didn't dwell on it. As they walked she filled him in on her time with Eren during the trip down. While still dissatisfied his anger had mostly died down. The time away had done him well in her view and Luke was likely to agree on principle. He'd mostly talked about going home, seeing his brother and returning to his routine. 

Upon their arrival, Tenos briskly asked how the trip back went and informed them Vesha and her husbands had gone to the baths and then retired to eat at their quarters. He suggested they do the same before dashing off, obviously busy with something. 

Luke discovered with what when he caught sight of Alva moving to the reception area to greet two figures, a portly woman in a gray lizard hide tunic that reached several inches below her knee, dangling bones at the witch's strap at her wrist. Beside her stood a smaller, almost willowy figure in a shorter green lizard hide tunic. What was striking was the crude kind of diadem on her head made of small branches, green leaves giving it a spark of color. A bit of cloth dangled from it, obscuring her face. 

Beside him, Mara chuffed a quiet laugh. “It’s a veil.” 

Luke turned his head to look at her on the step above his, confused. 

She drew her head down to whisper. “I think that’s their daughter-in-law to be.” 

And there he spied the lanky form of Tenos’ eldest coming forward. Alva’s hand reaching up to to lay on his shoulder. That explained why Tenos had seemed harried. 

Luke decided that was enough of spying, and lent a hand to Mara as they continued down the stairs and out to the bathouse. Dinner was waiting in their room when they returned, the bath only cementing their tiredness. When Luke went downstairs to return the empty tray and bowls, he spied Alva outside sitting on a blanket in the torch-lit patio, her son beside her. Before them sat the other woman and her daughter. Luke wasn’t close enough to see them in detail, what he could make out was diadem carelessly strewn beside the girl on the blanket. 

“Your wife is well?” Tenos’ voice interrupted his scrutiny. "How was your time at the Green Mountains?" 

Luke turned to him with a smile. “Resting. And it was...wonderful.” 

Tenos’ graced him with a pleased smile. He followed Luke’s eyes out the window to the patio. “Essar’s match. Several meetings take place before he goes to her hearth.” 

Luke noted Tenos’ melancholy expression. “What is it?” 

Tenos seemed to shake himself. “Nothing. Years go by so quickly.” He laughed softly. “I sound like an old man. We will miss Essar when he joins her after harvest. Izzat," Luke gathered this was the younger brother, "will miss him too, and Alva.” His shoulders sagged a bit. “It won’t be the same to simply visit.” Tenos shook himself with another small laugh. “I still see him stumbling on his two legs when I look at him sometimes.” He gestured to the window where Essar was passing the girl a bowl, with slow, deliberate motions. 

The twins as babies popped into Luke mind. Anakin toddling about. “Time is a strange thing.” 

Tenos nodded. 

“And the girl?” Luke asked. "Healer, right?" 

“Yes. They tend to patience. They have to for their calling. I’ve taught Essar what my father taught me.” He looked to Luke. “I did not want to leave my clan and my home to come tend to a girl, but Father used to tell me life seldom gives us what we want. We fashion it. I know Alva’s child." He looked to the figures out on the patio. 

The girl was looking fixedly at Essar as he narrated something, the girl's mother in rapt attention as well, but Alva had looked up and was staring in their direction. At Tenos, Luke realized. He gave her a tremulous smile that she mirrored before her son called to her breaking the spell.

"Happiness is in his grasp,” he said. 

And Luke thought about that as he went back up to their room, settling to meditate. Mara had gone out for her nightly routine and she was in her own meditation once he eased out and went for his own. He found her on the pallet, the lights out, the only illumination being from the patio torches. Thinking her asleep, he slid into the pallet gently but she shifted, and slowly sat up. 

“You took long,” she whispered in the darkness. 

“Tenos,” Luke explained. “He was telling me...” He exhaled. “Same thing we talked about before. His son. The matching. How fast time passes.” 

Mara made an acknowledging sound. “I saw Tenos’ boy and the girl when I went out. He seemed to be talking up a storm to her.” 

Luke stroked her back. The light from the torches seeped in and when Mara changed position, they washed over her arm like amber ribbons. 

“I hope they’ll be happy.” 

Mara shifted closer, disappearing into the dark. “They can be.” 

Luke reached an arm around her and pulled her gently back to lie down on the pallet, feeling the comfortable weight of her as he tucked her into him. He wondered at being here like Essar bound to a girl, unknown, but with the hope to draw her close with kindness, _fashioning_ love out of toil and familiarity. Was it any more a challenge than how love had come to be between he and Mara, where it’d been first and _sudden_ , their lives an unwieldy chaos they’d had to then discipline to it? 

He thought too of having been someone who couldn’t have left home, to have stayed dissatisfied, bored, but would that have been it? Could there not have been finding someone who’d love him like _this_ , and _deciding_ to be happy with as much fierceness as he’d decided to help his sister, to become a Jedi? Could there not have been letting someone else make him happy and thriving on making them happy in turn?

When you couldn't change your lot, his uncle had said more than once after a bad season, change your perspective. 

If he’d chosen to be happy, even like that, he could have, Luke thought. It wouldn’t have been easy, it would have been a struggle, but if it came to that or despair, the mire of lifelong bitterness, he _could_ have. 

Luke felt hope flower past the pity he’d felt for Eren. If there was no more to be done, then Eren should struggle for his own happiness through kindness and love -- to Vesha, to Aytell, to his daughter. Vila was right, it was in Vesha’s hands to be patient, past her grandmother’s influence, past the press of how they should feel but didn't, there were seeds of something better. There always were. 

Mara’s voice rang out groggily, “Something keeping you up?” 

Her Force presence beckoned and knew this as a call more than a question to answer. Luke brushed a kiss to her cheek and sank into its embrace. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to note that sea silk exists, but what is described here is _space_ sea silk.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Utterly different on the surface, their strengths balanced perfectly. Destiny had been kind to Mara Jade, the former Emperor’s Hand—and she didn’t need the Force to see that their union made Luke Skywalker a happy man."  
> \---Kathy Tyers, _Balance Point_

Luke awoke to the smell of fresh bread and a near-violent pang of hunger that quickly faded away to nothing. He rolled to the side expecting Mara there, but found the sheets cold. At that, he blearily raised his head. She was sitting at the table, dressed in her robe, quartering an ila. The soft light from the windows washed over her, drawing out the red-gold glint of her hair. 

“You went downstairs already?” he asked her groggily.

She flashed him a smile. “My bladder woke me and then I was starving.”

Luke sat up and passed a hand over his face. Her appetite had been steadily increasing for the past few days, he recalled, amused. She might have had a bigger dinner than he had.

Done with her quartering, Mara started pulling back the ila’s peel to let the arrils fall down into the bowl. The red of the arrils brought back memories of the banks of the lake at the Green Mountains. 

Mara passed him a coy sidelong gaze, clearly picking up on the memory as Luke pushed himself off the pallet. He came to sit by her at the table, grabbing a few arrils from the bowl.

“While you were at the baths, I got Kirana Ti on the comm. Not for very long obviously, but they weren’t worried. She said trust _you_ to find a drebbin in the mountains when one hasn't been seen in over fifty years.”

Luke chuckled and curled an arm around her waist. She smelled like dough, but if he kissed her, he was sure there’d be the tang of the ila too.

"Not my fault."

Mara snickered. "You'll probably be asked to explain yourself over dinner in lurid detail, so that a ballad can be made of it to be submitted for this year’s Games."

Luke made a face. He’d been told that one of the apprentices had submitted a ballad titled, _The Fearsome Battle Between Luke Skywalker and the One-Eyed Serpent_ that won last year. He’d also been told Mara counted it as a favorite alongside _No Greater Lover than He, Solo!_ because apparently her distaste for overblown narration did not extend to jaunty ballads covering similar ground. _No Greater Lover_ had started circulating nearly a decade ago; in the manner of all folk songs, its origins shrouded in mystery. When Mara had mentioned it to Leia after her first visit and sang her a few bars, his sister had laughed so hard she’d choked. Mara had neither confirmed nor denied her preferences, but thoroughly enjoyed watching Luke squirm over _The Fearsome Battle_. 

Luke suspected Mara had been involved somehow in that particular ballad's genesis. For one, he didn’t recall telling Kirana Ti about the dianoga, and Tionne had certainly never made a _ballad_ out of it. Also the sensibility was starkly different. While Dathomiri were culturally disinclined to double entendre, his wife, as Luke had learned early on, counted it as a special skill -- probably a smuggler thing. She had other more intriguing uses for this skill though, so the prodding was easy to forgive, and besides, all that innuendo _did_ make the song pretty funny.

Luke didn't mention he had a couple ideas for this year's submission he meant to leave the apprentices with, _all_ of them, in his estimation, lightyears better than his encounter with the drebbin. She'd see.

For now, he leaned his temple against hers, thinking of all the niches they'd carved out for themselves. 

“Thank you,” he murmured. "For all this."

Mara pulled away to flash him a put upon look. “I told you this was for both of us. Which reminds me...” 

She went to her bags and pulled out a disk with a proud smile. The amulet. She neared and offered it to him, aglow with anticipation, like one presenting a gift.

Luke took it and gently ran the pad of his finger over the inlaid stones, the one Mara had picked from the dry river bed that she'd used for the second ritual, and the one he'd picked at the creek, lighter in shade, but just as smooth. The one he'd picked was slightly larger and set in the bottom, while Mara's was above it, both forming a vague shape resembling a number eight. In terms of appearance, there was nothing striking about them within the metal disc, but it was not about _seeing_.

“Feel it,” Mara whispered, drawing closer.

Luke drew the Force to him and felt an answering thrum from the disc. Opening himself more, a wave of feeling swelled up, a warm blanket of protectiveness and tenderness, seeping through him, the amulet a type of...conduit?

He lifted his gaze up to Mara after a moment, her face open and shining. “It’s...”

“If you say magical, I’m eating all your breakfast. I could, you know.” She poked at his chest. “I should have brought up at least two more baskets.”

“It’s brilliant...and beautiful.” The words felt inadequate, trite, but they would have to do.

“A focusing object. My heart made manifest. Obviously it’ll be too big for him to wear for a while, but we can keep it near him, so when he reaches out he’ll feel it.”

A tiny baby, Luke’s mind conjured the image, swaddled, his face wrinkly, cries thin. Everything new and overwhelming, but this warm enfolding feeling, gauzy as it was for being secondhand, undoubtedly there. Familiar. Luke hoped their son felt this from them, strongly. Within Mara, he thought with some wonder. He should be as big as her hands cupped together now. Larger than the little seed he’d been just weeks ago, still so very small.

A whisper of cold trickled through the Force.

“If we...I don’t know,” the light in Mara’s expression dimmed suddenly, her mood abruptly changing, “If we...have to -- to go...on a trip. He can keep this.” 

She breathed in sharply. 

“When he sleeps in his own room.” Luke cleared his throat, reaching to squeeze her shoulder. “Leia told me the twins had a hard time of it. Han had to slept with them for a few weeks on the floor. Bet they -- they could have used something like this.”

Mara turned and pressed her cheek into his chest, her arms tight as they encircled his waist. They stayed like that for a bit, tightness in Luke's throat, the amulet warm in his hand.

\--

After his morning routine and finishing breakfast, he and Mara went down to return the tray and dishes with Mara getting herself an extra bowl of fruit. A jolt of surprise went through the household, nothing alarming, but the feeling reminded Luke of what he’d sensed the day before when he and Mara had walked back to the inn from the market. They shared a look.

Tenos was not in the room by the kitchen, and, caught by curiosity, they ambled to the reception area where most of the presences congregated.

Alva, Tenos beside her, the portly woman he’d seen yesterday, her daughter, Essar, and his brother beside them were gathered around someone else that Luke couldn’t make out. Whatever their meeting had been about, the person, revealed to be a middle aged woman, no witch strap around her wrist, seemed to be taking her leave.

“I knew that it would be called, but I didn’t suspect,” the portly woman was saying to Alva in shock as the visitor retreated. “Not so soon.”

Alva shook her head. “I don’t know why she’s insisting. On the unlikely event that it passes, the law will be challenged. Mother Kari is moving too quickly.”

“She has been trying for two years,” the portly woman noted. “Sandralei herself has been to our house to speak of what free men could offer. She has no gift, being Hapan, but she doesn’t need it with that silver tongue of hers. She tells of her father raising her alone, a very industrious fellow.”

Alva made a face. “Did she not have any aunts?”

“It would seem not.”

Essar lowered his head to the girl and gestured back inside the house. She nodded and he called to his brother, who followed, and they walked past Luke and Mara. Tenos watched them go, but lingered by Alva and the other woman, who continued in conversation.

“If you free men,” Alva told her, expression solemn, “that just makes them prey to whatever desperate witch scurries about. The Nightsisters were full of witches who’d gone the way of darkness grasping after a man.”

The portly woman looked uncomfortable all of sudden. “Witches have gone the way of darkness grasping for any number of things, Alva.”

Alva shook her head firmly. “No. A man should be cared for by his mother, his sisters, his wife. That is the way of things. It is different for you, Issaya, you have two daughters. Witches. But my sons...I would not find easy sleep if that law declared them free.”

She realized Luke and Mara were there, and her demeanor instantly changing to that of a host. “Issaya, these are our guests. Jai Mara and her mate.”

Issaya smiled politely, Luke sensed astonishment from her as her gaze slid onto Mara. “But you have a witch’s strap.”

“She went through her awakening rites at Singing Mountain a long time ago,” Alva informed her.

“Ah, I met Mother Kirana Ti several seasons ago,” she looked over to Alva, “the Tears, remember?”

“Oh, yes -- the rains wouldn’t stop and all of the lowlands around Frenzied River flooded,” Alva explained for Mara’s benefit. “The Council sent out a call to our sisters from the Northern Lakes, but the weather was so inclement, it took them close to a week to arrive and settle the river.”

Water readers, Luke remembered from something Vesha had said. 

“Mother Kirana Ti came with two youths,” Issaya recalled. “A girl about Izzat’s age, not quite a full apprentice, and a boy, perhaps a few seasons older than Essar. At first, it was thought he was her son, though he looked nothing like her. Mother Kirana Ti alone couldn’t make the waters recede, but with the boy she did something...something we couldn’t understand, a Jai spell. The waters stopped their rush. I always wondered what happened to him.”

“How many seasons ago?” Mara asked.

“I’m not sure, had to have been four? Five?”

Mara glanced at Luke. That had been roughly around the time she was preparing for her awakening rites, which meant it was shortly before the academy had been formally set up. 

“Dequan,” Luke murmured. He was one of his, quickly latching on to Kyp after his trials at Yavin 4, joined up with Kyp’s Dozen during the war effort. “He left.”

“To the Jai school -- the Jedi academy at Yavin 4.” Mara explained. “Took his Jedi Trails -- the awakening rites for Jedi -- there.” 

“I do not blame him. It was before the Hapans came to Frenzied River -- the lowlands had more traditional folk then.” Issaya’s expression became drawn with pity. “The things they said to that poor boy...”

“Shameful,” Alva murmured. “To one who came to help.”

Issaya sighed. “Tragedy can lay bare the best, but also the worst. The Jai school has always sent its Jai when there is need. If I had a boy so inclined, I think it would not trouble me to send him, provided I could visit of course.”

Mara blinked in surprise, then beamed. Luke himself was taken aback, he’d never heard a witch be so bluntly accepting, especially in the presence of those who weren’t. Alva's lips tightened, but she didn't say anything.

“He would be welcome, and his family too, whenever they wished to check on him,” Mara told Issaya. “In Singing Mountain a male spellcaster isn't as rare as he once was.”

Just then Alva's youngest emerged and called to Tenos about the location of his instrument. 

“I put it away.” She touched Issaya’s shoulder. “Excuse me.” She went inside the house, Tenos behind her.

Issaya watched them go. “Very talented in music that one,” she said. Turning to Mara she went on, “But your Jai men, they are all required to leave by Jai teachings, no?”

Aytell had the same question, Luke realized. Perhaps that misconception would be something to discuss with Kirana Ti and Streen.

“Not quite. We prefer they take their trials for Knighthood at Yavin 4 so they can be among other Jedi, so they have more experience outside Dathomir, but they can take their trials here if they wish. And they can always return after.” Mara hesitated and Luke sensed her doubt over whether to continue. “Or they can decide against Knighthood and stay. The school has amassed a number of contacts where a male spellcaster can pursue another apprenticeship regardless of his training.”

Issaya’s eyebrows went up. “Jai apprenticeship without becoming a Jai?”

“It’s not something we advertise for the protection of our friends’ livelihoods, though no secret.” Mara’s voice was soft. “A gifted woman has the right to awaken as a witch, regardless of how she will use her talent. A woman may decide not to use it at all, but it remains her birthright. We believe the Force to be the birthright of all who have it.”

“If it would please you, Mother Issaya and guests,” Tenos called, stretching a hand to beckon to them. “Izzat will play for you.”

“Wonderful,” Issaya called to him and turned to Mara again. "Our grandmothers did said the end of our world was coming."

"I don't think this is something to fear," Mara told her.

"No," Issaya replied kindly. "Ends are beginnings, after all." She walked on ahead towards Tenos. “Don’t call me Mother, Tenos,” Luke heard her chide the man teasingly, “We are family. And given Essar’s skill over the fire, I do think we are benefiting the most from this matching.”

Tenos chuckled. “And you have yet to sample his burra fry.”

Luke and Mara followed them to the patio. To their surprise, Vesha sat beside Issaya’s daughter on the wide blanket, radiating unease. She was back to the jewelry she'd worn when they'd first met her, the gold nose chain and her thick gold bracelets. Aytell and Eren sat together to one corner, and Luke couldn't read anything specific from them. He went to sit a few paces from them while Mara took the spot next to Vesha.

“Everything okay?” Luke heard her ask quietly. 

Vesha’s lips thinned. She whispered something in Mara’s ear and Luke felt a wave of sympathy from her. 

After Alva's youngest played, Tenos and Essar brought out a simple lunch, which went by smoothly. Issaya kept to her unexpected ebullience, asking Vesha all types of questions about the Western Flatirons, occasionally asking Mara about the places she'd visited. Her daughter was less outgoing, but seemed friendly enough, asking Mara a question or two about Jai healing techniques.

The lunch gave Luke no occasion to inquire about Eren and something in the air felt uncomfortable. He wasn't sure how much of it were the tensions between them or that they now knew him to be a Jedi. When the meal was over Mara addressed Vesha, Issaya and her daughter, giving her goodbyes. Luke turned to Aytell and Eren.

"I hope your trip home goes well," he said.

Aytell nodded. His voice was neutral sliding a bit to cold as he said, "Yours, as well."

"Your paths be lit," Eren mumbled distantly.

Luke frowned, wanting to say more, especially to Eren, there was something unsatisfying to leaving him like this, but all he said was, "Yours too."

\--

Back at their room he and Mara had started to pack for their trip back and Luke tried to shake off the feeling of dissatisfaction his interaction with the men had left him. Mara had turned to them to give her goodbyes as well, but they seemed equally aloof towards her, even Eren, who she'd spent considerable time with yesterday. As a witch, she wasn't supposed to notice them, Mara had reflected. At this point, everyone more or less let Mara's unconventional behavior slide, but it was still awkward for them, especially in front of others.

“Eren’s speaking to Aytell, but he refuses to deal with Vesha. She says she hasn’t seen him like this before,” Mara told him as she folded one of her tunics.

“It’s only been a day,” Luke told her, putting their hygiene kit away. That could also explain Aytell and Eren's standoffishness towards him. They'd hardly had time to get used to it.

Mara didn’t look up as she started on another tunic. “Yeah, I think she knows. She insists it’s not normal though.”

“Did he seem that angry on the ride down? I thought you said resigned more than anything.”

“I got that impression, but maybe being around her again set him off.” She stopped. “They have about a week’s journey ahead of them.”

“Vila’s going with them,” Luke reminded her, reading her concern. “Having an outside perspective might help, or at least she can stay with Vesha, while Eren has Aytell to watch over him. That is, if things don’t get better before then. They might.”

“I hope you’re right.” She went to sit on the pallet. “People can surprise you. I never expected Issaya to be so accepting. Frenzied River might have a large settler population, but Hapans aren’t that much friendlier to Jedi so it can't be that.”

Luke smiled at her. “Some people sense the change in the wind.” 

She lifted her head, projecting skepticism. “You think that vote she and Alva were talking about will accomplish anything?”

“It might,” he offered. “At the very least it’ll keep people thinking.”

“The head of the council has tried for two years straight.”

“Maybe third time’s the charm.” 

“Maybe.” She flashed him a lopsided smile and patted the spot beside her. "You didn't seem pleased when you talked to Aytell and Eren. A little sad."

"It's nothing." He waved a hand. "They're just uneasy around me."

"Since yesterday," she said softly.

He sat next to her. "I'm used to it. Just...it's a little different from how it was before. It's always a bit disappointing." Her hand slid over his. “So...not to change the subject, but I’ve been giving my gift some thought.” He scooted closer.

Mara’s sense brightened. “Have you?” 

Luke nodded. It felt strange to be put in the position of asking for something. He had everything he wanted, more than he could possibly want. It felt greedy to ask for more, but it was part of the ritual, and more importantly, he’d felt every indication Mara wanted this from him.

As he’d run it through his head, he’d thought back to yesterday, to what Mara had mentioned about the sea silk, about distance. 

_Change compels us to stop, take stock, and adjust where we stand from time to time._

Yesterday he’d thought about it in light of resentments, Jaina and Leia, and Vesha and Eren. It was true of anyone, and not limited to resentments. The thought had crystallized that _he’d_ been keeping his distance, _giving_ Mara her distance for so long it'd become near a reflex. His mind traveled to all those times when he’d wanted to touch their baby and held back.

Luke met Mara’s eyes, her expression expectant, but she didn’t hurry him. 

She had to have noticed. When she'd said her body was the ground for the ritual, he’d missed part of what she’d meant, thinking that she was staking a claim on the baby. Her baby. Luke reached up and placed his hands on her stomach over the soft fabric of her tunic. 

_There’s no one’s toes to step on. We’re the only ones here._

He raised his eyes to hers. 

“Teach me the Song of Discovery?”

Mara nodded, happiness in her sense scattering out like morning sunbeams.

He closed his eyes and waited for her to begin. The singing was distracting enough that it took him several tries just to get used to pulling on the Force through it. His first attempts were clumsy, full of pauses in awkward places, words tortured and off beat. Mara went slowly, coaxing him into the rhythm with patient repetition.

She had him sing the first verse over and over until he began intuiting the cadences between the unfamiliar words, how to weave the Force through them. Only when he could vocalize them smoothly, did Mara’s voice guide him through the next verse, once and again, and again. 

With each repetition, Mara’s presence seemed to thrum back in a response that was as unlike sound as his own perception of the Force was unlike seeing, but it filled the spaces between the words all the same. The contours of her and the child within her took clearer shape, the connection between them and Luke embossed in the life around them, in the house, in the town. 

When they came to the final word of the song, he opened his eyes. 

“The baby will become clear once you direct your attention specifically to him. It was a lullaby, you know, the first Song of Discovery. That’s what’s said anyway,” Mara said.

His hands smoothed a gentle caress down her belly. “I believe it.”

She pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Go on.”

Luke closed his eyes, slowly singing the words, still a little bit stilted, but more familiar. Of course, he had sensed the baby before, but always as something apart, an element to probe. Making sure all was right, that Mara was all right. But to touch him like _this_. 

The tiny spark of life thrummed in response. 

Their _son_.

Mara’s certainly, he had her Force sense imprinted on him, but also Luke’s. His own. But when that tiny life reached back -- an instinctual recognition possibly, he seemed something else too. Something different and wondrous for it.

Luke pressed his cheek against where his son was cradled, wanting for nothing. He felt Mara’s hand along his hair, his nape, and understood about thresholds. For so long he’d been witnessing the thresholds where Mara had stood, giving her space to cross them on her own. She’d needed that then. He’d only opened his hand to her, and she’d come. In her time.

But this threshold was theirs, and this was Mara who’d opened her hand, had him ink the name of his aunt into her skin to honor her for who she’d been to him, who had bared her own fears and regrets, pulling him along with that boundless, fierce capacity to love, pouring out her heart with no reserves or reservations. Yours is mine is _ours_. 

Just like everything else.

And it opened up with stunning clarity, an answer to why he would bring a child into a universe of uncertainties, of war. Why have this child?

Luke drew his fingers across the soft round of Mara’s belly thinking that for all that pain and suffering, for all that uncertainty, there was love. This was a universe where he’d been loved, and dearly, by his aunt and uncle, by his friends, his family; a universe where he’d reunited with a long lost sister, a father, where he’d found his helpmeet and confidant, the one whose mind and heart had grown as attuned to his as his to hers. This was a universe where he could love her back, where he could love all of them back, where he could take that overflow of feeling and do good with it, _keep_ doing good with it.

He wanted a child, _this_ son to know _that_ universe. He wanted Mara’s son, their son, to love and be loved this dearly, to do good in his own way. Even now, not yet named Luke knew he could, that within him lay an immense capacity to love, to have his paths lit by it. Of course, he did. He was his mother’s son.

Luke found himself thinking of Ben, that quiet, solitary figure who'd lurked at the margins of his life until tragedy had struck. Were it not for his hand, Luke's life might have had a different path. It might not have had a path at all.

He reached up his hand to Mara’s in his hair, feeling humbled once more by all he had, feeling Mara's own gratitude alongside his, and to their baby he whispered, "We love you so much."

\--

Some time later, when the bags were packed and ready, Luke offered, mock-thoughtfully, “What about...Dast?”

She wrinkled her nose from where she lay on the pallet beside him. “No.”

He propped his head up on an elbow. “Dinant.”

That drew an “Ugh...No.”

“I thought you'd like it. It's got that court flash you like so much." Luke grinned at the ensuing glare. “I got it. Lif. Lif Skywalker.”

“Stop. Stop. No more suggestions,” she groaned, waving her hands and covering her face. “No more. They’re getting _worse_.”

He laughed. “I’ll find one you agree with eventually.”

“At this rate he’ll be walking.”

“So little faith in me.”

She chuckled. “I suppose even a blind hawkbat can catch a granite slug if you wait long enough.”

“Your last suggestions were just as bad if not exponentially more awful,” he pointed out jutting his chin at her, “Zocat? Fultimo?”

“They’re names from the time of the Great Hyperspace War," she said archly as if she didn't know this had become a contest of sorts of who could suggest the most ridiculous name. Mara was, as usual, putting in her best effort. "Historical figures of great import.”

Luke narrowed his eyes at her. “Mara, we're not naming our son after the first rocket jumper.”

Mara let out a loud laugh, but stopped to groan. “We have to keep moving, if we want to get to Singing Mountain before dinner.”

Sharing her reluctance, Luke lay back with a sigh and pushed himself off the pallet and to his feet. Mara did the same albeit with more difficulty. He snickered a little, imagining her waddling beside him into meetings, only to be rewarded with a scowl and some grumbling. 

He looked at his chrono, half dismayed about how late it’d gotten. She hadn’t mentioned it, and it hadn’t been that long since lunch, but she was probably getting hungry. They should make a quick stop at one of the market kiosks before leaving the town to get Osha.

Alva materialized at the foot of the stairs once they’d gone down, asking if they would need one of their boys to help with the bags. Mara thanked her, but they’d traveled light enough to be fine until Sook’s Forest. Tenos approached as Mara was handing Alva a heavy pouch that contained their payment for their stay.

He offered Mara a basket. 

“For the journey,” Alva said. “I still remember the hunger pangs when I was teeming.”

Luke felt Mara’s warmth at the detail. “Oh, thank you.”

Alva smiled at her. “May your paths be lit, Jai Mara. We hope you have enjoyed your stay.”

“Yours and your children’s as well,” Mara replied. "We did." 

Luke sent his gratitude to Tenos who brightened, acknowledging it with a slight tip of his head in Luke’s direction. With a last wave they started their way back, walking in silence through the gently winding streets of the town. A few streets away from the inn, Mara looked curiously into the basket. 

“What did they pack?” Luke asked.

“Hmm. Ridge cheese, suica spread, bread --”

“Jai Mara! Jai Mara!"

Vesha’s voice, urgency in her sense. Both Luke and Mara turned. 

She was panting and redfaced from her run, conspicuous thanks to her pregnancy and her heavy gold bracelets -- she'd dispensed with her nose chain. “I did not know you would leave so soon.”

Mara’s confusion was clear on her face. "What is --"

“The men at your school at Singing Mountain,” Vesha interrupted, “are they protected? Are they kept safe?”

Mara's mouth pinched a bit in disapproval. “Our apprentices are taught to protect themselves.”

“Are they all free men?”

Mara narrowed her eyes. “Yes. In everything but name depending on the situation. Why?”

“My mate would attend,” she said thickly. “Eren.”

Mara’s anger flared up, sharp enough that Vesha took a step back with a gasp, but her voice was as level as ever.

“ _You_ don’t get to decide that.”

“No,” Vesha’s voice cracked as she shook her head. “He asked for it. As the gift.” She went on, stricken. “I can’t let him go before the child is born. It is inauspicious. Grandmother would not understand. After the child is born, I will not be able to take him to Singing Mountain and he cannot go alone. But that is what he asked for and I cannot deny him. I don’t want to. He detests me enough as it is.”

Mara’s face softened. “He doesn't. You know he doesn't."

Vesha made a sound at the back of her throat. "This is what he asked of me."

“You should have brought him to us."

“You don’t believe--”

“This is not _your_ choice. It’s his and he should make it. He needs to make it.” Mara paused. “Go get him.”

Vesha’s eyes widened. “What? Now?”

Mara's tone tolerated no argument. “If he's serious, I have to talk to him.”

They both watched as Vesha hurried away. 

“Did you know?” Mara asked.

Luke gestured that they should move to a less transited part of the street and dropped the bags to wait. "No. Not a clue. You?"

"He never gave me reason to believe he was even considering it." She frowned. "Today he was just so quiet."

Luke reached to pat her arm reassuringly, but she'd gone to rummage through the basket for something to eat.

\--

A short while later Vesha was back with Eren, Aytell trailing behind them, the mood between them a cloying swirl of pain and worry and guilt that made Luke wince.

He'd mulled it over while Vesha had been getting her mates and Eren's request began making more sense. Hadn't Eren been asking more space from Vesha since he'd found her reasons for picking him -- ostensibly his strong gift -- hadn't been what he thought at all? Eren had barely spoken to either Vesha _or_ Aytell yesterday, to the point that Vesha had asked he ride down with Mara. Things sounded like they'd improved incrementally with Aytell, going by what Mara had said, but that could have just brought into relief how much space Eren needed from Vesha. She'd been the force that had defined his life for as long as he'd lived with her and Aytell, hadn't she? 

So maybe he wanted even more distance. Maybe he was turning to his gift to make of the pretext the truth. Luke couldn't tell for certain. It could be both.

“She wants to hear it from you,” Vesha told Eren when they approached. “Wants to make sure that this is what you wish.”

Eren looked down, shuffling his feet. “It is. The Jai can make me something different, right?"

As far as a reason for training, Luke thought, maybe it wasn't ideal -- but had his own reasons been any better when he'd started? How many apprentices had he himself trained, drawn by adventure, by freedom, by curiosity who'd found themselves and their calling while training? 

"We can help you make _youself_ someone different," Mara corrected from beside Luke. "If you come to Singing Mountain we will awaken you to your gift, teach you to be aware of it, to help others with it, and do no harm. Even so, it’s not an easy path. Especially not here.” 

A few passersby, several young women and a boy of probably eight or nine, glanced at them, the crowd of five, including two pregnant women, one of which was wearing heavy gold bracelets, and three men, while not rare, a bit noteworthy. Things were sensitive enough as they were, and Luke gently nudged their attention away, thinking that ideological purity counted for little when half the Force sensitive population was brought up to believe they had no right to their talent. Just daring to dream differently was significant.

Whatever Eren's reasons, that he was doing it for himself was sufficient.

Mara reached to Eren's chin to gently tip his face up to look at her. His eyes were red-rimmed, the request might not have been any easier for him to make than Vesha's to hear. 

“By the end of three years, you can keep going to become a Jedi or do something else, but whatever you’ve learned will be yours. You'll be responsible for it. Do you understand this?”

Luke felt his apprehension pulse through the Force, but he said, "I do."

"And this is what you still want?"

Eren nodded again. He swallowed. "It is."

Mara withdrew her hand and passed her gaze onto Vesha and Aytell. Luke couldn't help but characterize Aytell's expression as numb. Mara's eyes fell back on Eren.

“We know that apprentices have vastly different situations, and in Eren's case that the birth provides some limitations. This is what I propose: We will send one of our older instructors to go to your clan and offer him safe passage to Singing Mountain at an agreed upon time."

“The journey to the Flatirons --” Vesha started.

The corner of Mara’s mouth twitched in what Luke knew to be a restrained smile. A Jedi might not have the specific know-how to quell a raging river, but they certainly had enough skill to make their way through inhospitable landscapes. “Our instructors are fully trained Jedi.”

“One last thing.” There was a slight hitch to Vesha’s voice. “My family will not allow that unless it’s through traditional means. Trade.”

Mara’s own face tightened, revulsion sharp in her sense. “The academy will pay. If that is needed, I can take the responsibility in name if you like. Any of our instructors would be willing as well. I trust them with my life.”

“No,” Eren broke in, paling. “No. No. I-I-I don’t want that. If I’m owned by--”

“The academy's transactions are in name only,” Luke intervened attempting to soothe him. “Nothing is enforced.”

But Eren was looking at Vesha. “Mother Treyu -- she -- she will never let me come back. The child--”

Vesha shook her head, face squeezing like the words themselves hurt. “You're right. She won’t.”

Aytell shot forward to clasp Eren's arm insistently, like one waking from a dream. “It is not so dire that you should go east. You must not let your ire--”

“That’s what I keep telling you,” Eren’s voice seemed poised to break. “It’s not.”

“Everything will look better once you are with your clan,” Aytell continued quickly.

"You asked me whether the men we trained left," Luke blurted out to him. "It was for Eren wasn't it? He doesn't _have_ to leave. That depends on him. And you." 

Eren turned to Aytell. "You asked if I would leave?"

"I asked about _Jai_. It was a foolish conversation," Aytell replied, a tinge of desperation in his voice, eyes on Vesha as if he wanted her to insist as well, but she covered her face with one hand and looked away, distress pouring out of her. "Your home is with _us_. If it is about the magic, Vesha told you--"

"It is not about the magic," Eren cut him off, eyes on Vesha, and that wrenching feeling from him through the Force seemed to have no end to it, so full was it of longing, resentment, and trepidation. "Or Vesha. It's not. It's about me. I won't be like you. I _can't_. I've been trying since I came to your hearth and...You and her always had one another. You needed a child. Now you have it. You don't need me. You cannot hate me if this is what you thought I would do."

Aytell shook his head firmly. "No! I did not think -- I would never--"

“Can I have four months?” Eren asked Mara. “I think--"

Aytell squeezed Eren's arm emphatically. " _We_ could never hate you. Never."

Eren closed his eyes, a pained expression on his face. "I-I should like to meet Vesha’s daughter before I go.”

Mara nodded, a brief flash of sympathy in her features, the feeling deep and clear through the Force. "Of course."

She stretched a hand to Vesha, who took off one of her bracelets. When communicating over distances with an unknown witch, personal items were par for the course. 

Mara put it into her bag. “Four months. One of our instructors will be in contact and return this to you when she comes for Eren.”

“Thank you.” Vesha tentatively snaked an arm around his shoulders. It was the closest Luke had seen them since the drebbin incident. “Safe travels, Jai,” she murmured shakily, before turning her attention back to him.

Both Mara and Luke nodded watching them. Eren lurched, gait halting, his shoulders slumped, but he was leaning slightly against Vesha. Aytell came to his other side, speaking softly, his hand at Eren's back.

"The four months is good." Mara said heavily. Her eyes didn't move from the three figures until the disappeared past a turn. "The possibility of leaving things in a better place between all of them."

“Will he change his mind? Aytell might keep trying to convince him to stay. And the baby...”

“I don’t know...I don’t think so. Whatever Aytell has tried hasn’t worked.” Mara’s expression lost the firmness it had when she’d been before them, eyes clouding. “It shouldn’t have to hurt this much.” Her voice lowered. “Feels like I’m breaking a family.”

“You're not. Things are changing. Her grandmother might interfere less with Vila there and once Vesha passes her witch trials, she’ll have her own household. Make her own rules. Give Eren a home to come back to if he chooses that. At the very least open her home so he can know his daughter.”

Change seldom came easy. Who knew what the Force held in store for Eren, how many lives _he_ would touch? But even if he didn't choose that, even if he only took what they taught him to live in peace with himself, that was sufficient. It was an old lesson Luke had taken to heart: A Jedi's calling was never so abstract so as to forget that the universe was made of beings, singular and unique. To reach out to just one was more than worthwhile.

Mara's gaze remained troubled, weighed with melancholy. “And for Eren with nothing...”

Luke stared at her. Mara herself must have been, older than Eren, but not much younger than Vesha when she'd been cast into an unknown future, alone. As much as a realist as she saw herself, she’d also burned with the hope of something better. Enough to fight tirelessly for it. For herself first. Now for others. 

He slid an arm around his wife’s back and pressed a kiss to her temple, ignoring the odd looks of the people in the thoroughfare in front of them.

“Not with nothing,” he whispered, feeling her let the gloominess go as she looked at him, her eyes clear. “Never with nothing.”

\--

By the time they'd arrived at the mountains overlooking the valley of Singing Mountain, twilight had drawn it into its embrace. The scattered lights of the stone dwellings glittered across the land like sequins on a skirt. When Luke had first come to Dathomir most of the dwellings -- thatched huts then -- had been nestled at the foot of the fortress, but peacetime had turned the cluster of dwellings into an unruly sprawl occasionally broken by forests and fields of crops. 

The fortress, the Witch Council's headquarters, at the highest point of Singing Mountain was now just one concentrated gleam. In the distance between the mountains past it glimmered part of a dome -- the semi-finished main hangar of Dathomir’s first modern spaceport. The _Shadow_ was one of the many ships tucked underneath it awaiting their return in a few days. Beyond but unseen from here, lay the smaller shapes of the secondary hangars. 

Luke couldn’t make the satellite academy’s humble building from where they were either, but he knew it to be nestled in the hill just behind the fortress. Kirana Ti, Streen and the apprentices would be waiting there. Hopefully with dinner ready. Luke couldn’t help a smile. Mara had single-handedly polished off everything Tenos had packed within the first twenty minutes of their ride, it seemed.

Osha stopped, as if taking in the view himself before he lifted his head and roared, a note of contentment bright through the Force, brightening even more at his herd’s answering cries. With a pleased huff, Osha began making his way down.

Luke looked over at Mara beside him, her hand in his. Her other hand rested over her belly. 

Curious, he reached towards his son, a kind of mutedness through the Force making Luke think that he was dozing.

“I wonder what he dreams about,” Luke murmured.

Mara’s smile caught the light of the rising moons above them. 

“Food,” she said. 

  


end.

  


  


Aughh I can’t believe I started posting this in Jan and its May now. I can’t believe a fic devoid of plot logistics would be so hard to write.

My bud strangestallure doesn't even go here, but generously gave me eyes on this chapter and made it better, apart from listening to my endless prattling about it. Gurl, I'm freeeeeee.

My people in this tiny but lovely slice of fandom! I want to thank Celina who is as enthused as I am about Dathomir. It’s been so fun and motivating to read what struck you about this version of it! Jedi was super encouraging, always game with amazing commentary. Everyone who took the time to let me know they were reading in any way, names I recognize and new names, all incredibly welcome and encouraging when I felt I’d never finish.

This particular fic was not only in conversation with _Balance Point_ and _The Courtship of Princess Leia_ , but also with Deaka's marvelous [Odd Kind of Honeymoon](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3511309/1/Odd-Kind-of-Honeymoon), a must-read for this fandom.

Thank you so much for reading. <3


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